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Amanpour

Demanding Justice in Mexico; Banks Fined for Rigging FX Markets; Imagine a World

Aired November 12, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: fury on the streets of Mexico over 43 missing students. My exclusive with Mexico's

ambassador to the United States. It's the first government interview on this brutal crisis.

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EDUARDO MEDINA-MORA, MEXICAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: This is a wakeup call, the reality is there. We have to face it. But we have the

understanding, the map, the road map to actually do this and the political will.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Also ahead, six big banks fined $3 billion for trying to rig the currency market.

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ANDREA LEADSOM, BRITISH MP AND ECONOMIC SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY: . this is a total disgrace and people will be livid.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): But from anger to celebration, as history is made, 300 million miles away in space.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

It has been called a massacre of the innocents and it has shocked and shamed Mexico: 43 student teachers kidnapped and brutally murdered by a

criminal gang with close ties to local government officials.

Even the pope has now weighed in and has reached the audience at the Vatican.

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POPE FRANCIS (through translator): I wanted somehow to express my closest to the Mexicans who are here and those back home, in this painful

time for an illegal disappearance but we know it was a murder, a murder of the students. But the dramatic reality of all the crime that exists behind

drug trafficking becomes evident.

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AMANPOUR: And I'll ask Mexico's ambassador about all of that in a moment.

But first, CNN's Rafael Romo on the widespread public fury over corruption and impunity that's spilling onto the streets.

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RAFAEL ROMO, SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): There was no holding back. Protesters throwing rocks and firecrackers at police and

officers responding with tear gas.

ROMO: It's hard to breathe. My eyes are burning.

ROMO (voice-over): Protesters took over the ruling party's state building here in Chilpancingo and torched part of it, but were finally

repelled by police.

"This is how the government expresses itself," this protester says.

The government says the students from a rural teachers' college were murdered by a gang, the bodies burned in a landfill.

ROMO: By the time they got here, some students were already dead. The ones who were not dead already were executed.

ROMO (voice-over): A mayor accused of having deep ties to the gang and who authorities say gave the order to detain the students is in jail.

So are his wife and more than 70 others. Officials say the students were on their way to disrupt an event by the mayor and his wife, so he ordered

their abduction.

The parents of the missing say they don't trust the government's investigation and refuse to believe their children are dead, especially

since there's no DNA evidence. They vowed to keep the pressure on the government with even more violent protests.

"We will protest until we find them," this parent says. "The Mexican government has the obligation to return them alive." -- Rafael Romo, CNN,

Chilpancingo, Mexico.

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AMANPOUR: And Mexico's ambassador to the United States, Eduardo Medina-Mora, tells me that this is a wakeup call for his country. It is

the first interview that a Mexican government official has given since this major crisis erupted two months ago.

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AMANPOUR: Ambassador Medina-Mora, welcome to the program.

Thank you very much, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Very, very difficult times for you and for your country people and the fury continues to be felt on the streets and it is

reverberating around the world.

This is a big political crisis for the president, isn't it?

MEDINA-MORA: It is a big political crisis for Mexico. We are all outraged by these brutal events and the only feeling that we can have is to

share this sorrow and pain from the parents of these students who are still missing.

AMANPOUR: And let me ask you because one of the things that no one can really understand is the state of crime and injustice in Mexico.

First and foremost, why did it take 10 days for the federal authorities to launch an investigation?

MEDINA-MORA: Well, first of all, it didn't take that long. Federal authorities went into the scene right away to take control of the security

circumstance. We deployed federal forces in 15 municipalities of the state of Guerrero right away.

And of course, Mexico is a federal system. You have to understand that we have different competencies, different areas of jurisdiction

between the state and the federal.

When this case were surrendered to the federal because it was linked with organized crime, then the formal investigation was started. But the

federal prosecutor started cooperating with the local prosecutors of the State of Guerrero from day one.

AMANPOUR: Nonetheless, people watching think that it took too long, despite your various administrative issues. And clearly the parents think

it's too long.

And we have all sorts of pictures, which I'm sure you've seen as well, obviously, YouTube video taken of the parents during a meeting with the

president, asking for more competence, more searches, you know, really wanting to see a much more dramatic involvement by the government.

What are you telling the parents now?

Because they say, listen, we saw our children alive and we want to get them back alive.

MEDINA-MORA: We have 10,000 people deployed on the terrain as we speak, searching for these students actively. We have a very clear path of

investigation. We have a hypothesis that actually shows that it might be the case that they are there, that they have been killed.

But we are not stopping the search here. The investigation is an open one. And we are actively searching for these students with 10,000 federal

officers in that area as we speak.

And of course, the parents are just entitled to get a response from authorities, both at the local, at the federal level and we are deploying

every single means at our reach to do that.

AMANPOUR: Can I play for you something that is still shocking all these days later? The words of the attorney general of Mexico describing

what he believes and what you have decided is the murder of these 43 students, the brutality of it.

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JESUS MURILLO KARAM, MEXICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL (through translator): Those detained pointed out that they deprived of their lives the students

and then they threw them to the lower part of the dam and they buried the bodies and they spent their hours on the watch, throwing tires, wood,

plastic and fuel for hours.

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AMANPOUR: I mean, the cold-blooded, brutal murder of these 43 students.

I guess, Ambassador, your reaction to that and also to -- you know, I ask myself, how can a country watch 43 students brutally murdered like this

simply because they got in the way of the ambition of the wife of a local politician?

How is it possible?

MEDINA-MORA: This is brutal. This is inhumane. This is unacceptable. We need, of course, to respond to this from the basic

sentiment that we share with the parents.

We certainly devote every single resource in our reach to face this.

This is, of course, a circumstance that is very unacceptable in the State of Guerrero. We certainly face this with every single tool at our

reach in order to impede this to happen again.

And of course, to go after the perpetrators, we have so far detained 73 people, 36 local police officers, the mayor and his wife, the head of

the criminal group and a few members of this group. We are still searching for many more. And these shall not remain impugned.

And we will, of course, see that the full force of the law is faced by these people that perpetrated these crimes.

This is unacceptable and we are certainly sharing the sentiment of the parents of these students.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Ambassador, I hear you loud and clear. You say you will use every tool at your disposal.

But here's the problem. First of all, the people don't trust this. And I'm not sure why they should trust this because, by Mexico's own

statistics -- and we have these statistics -- 93.8 percent of crimes in Mexico were unreported or uninvestigated in 2013, last year.

So does President Pena Nieto have to change the way of accountability and the way of justice in Mexico?

MEDINA-MORA: Christiane, this is a wakeup call for all of us in the shortcomings of our institutional advancement, particularly in states like

Guerrero.

We have advanced a lot. But it is very clear that we are not yet where we need to be in terms of responding to the basic obligation of the

state, which is to provide certainty to all the united citizens, to live lives in peace, in tranquility with their families in what can be called

normality.

We are certainly not there, particularly in areas as Guerrero, that are certainly facing these dramatic circumstances. And I can assure you

that government, President Pena Nieto, is fully and personally committed. No one can stay really without a reaction to this.

We are parents and we understand the circumstance. And we certainly understand the political responsibilities that we face. The president

does. The government does. We do and we will, of course, face this with a very strong political action.

AMANPOUR: So as former attorney general and as the holder of many of the security portfolios in your own country over the

past years, what would you recommend?

Obviously President Pena Nieto has put the economy first and some would say put crime and justice and the narcotraffickers and the criminal

state somewhat second.

What is your recommendation now at this moment of what you call a wakeup call?

MEDINA-MORA: President Pena Nieto is very much aware of this. He has never taken security for granted. He is, of course, focusing in the public

speech around the opportunities for Mexico, but he is very clear on what has to be done.

And we need, of course, to review the distribution of powers between the federation, states and municipalities to try to move forward in terms

of moving towards a sound and a safe and large enough security arrangement that can actually provide these basic services to the citizenship.

AMANPOUR: Because of course, the parents will be asking, just as each and every one of us ask, every time there's a terrible crime like this in

Mexico, and there have been many, how is it possible that the police, who are sworn to uphold the law, actually take these kids and hand them over to

these brutal drug trafficking gangs?

MEDINA-MORA: It is totally unacceptable and --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: They're corrupt. How do we stop this corruption? It's at the heart of the matter.

MEDINA-MORA: It is -- we have to see if the institutional design behind having municipal police forces, which are highly fragmented and

small in terms of numbers, are actually able to deal with these issues in these particular areas that are facing organized crime. We need to

actually build up institutional strength.

And a democratic state, Christiane, needs a very strong and large police force, at the end, in order not to use it. We have to develop very

strong, reliable, accountable police institutions to respond to these challenges. And maybe the design that we have had to this date is not up

to this task.

We have to review this clearly, nationally, but now as for the most important element in the State of Guerrero and all those areas that are

facing these dramatic circumstances, in which organized crime plays a role, our problem is not a drug trafficking problem, it's a security problem,

which is made much worse by drug trafficking.

We need to first build up the security forces that are institutionally strong enough to face these challenges and to provide certainty to our

citizens, to have all territorial control in order to impede these groups to take control of them.

This is a much more larger and deeper endeavor and task for all of us.

AMANPOUR: Ambassador Medina-Mora, thank you very much for your frankness. And thank you for being the first Mexican official to explain

to us what happened and what you're going to try to do to fix this.

MEDINA-MORA: Thank you very much to you, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And coming up, disgusting, disgraceful, corrupt: some of the choice words my next guest uses to condemn six big banks, who've been

had up for trying to rip off taxpayers again.

The foreign exchange rigging scandal and the multibillion-dollar fines, what that means for you and me, next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Talk about banks behaving badly again, following a year-long investigation, six banks -- and these are the world's biggest banks -- have

been slapped with a record fine.

Four regulators, acting in unison today in the U.K., the United States and Switzerland, hit them with a $4.3 billion in penalties for basically

trying to rig the global foreign exchange market by allowing traders to share confidential information and to collude with colleague to fix rates

and increase profits.

The biggest foreign exchange market is right here in London. So I asked the British treasury minister, Andrea Leadsom, whether taxpayers will

ever be able to have confidence in the much maligned banking system.

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AMANPOUR: Andrea Leadsom, welcome to the program.

Let me start by asking you -- I mean, is there really no end to the shenanigans that we can expect from this industry?

ANDREA LEADSOM, BRITISH MP AND ECONOMIC SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY: Well, I have to say this is a total disgrace and people will be livid. I

mean, not only was this complete corruption on the part of these foreign exchange traders, but also at a time when the financial sector was being

bailed out by the taxpayers.

So I mean, it really doesn't get much lower than that. So it is pretty disgusting.

But I have to say that since we came to office in 2010, we have made some significant changes to the regulatory regime.

So you know, we've made it criminally liable to deliberately manipulate a benchmark. We have introduced very tough regulatory regime

with the new very powerful Financial Conduct Authority.

We've delivered clawbacks so that people who get paid and whose subsequent poor performance comes to light can have their bonuses removed

from them, even from prior years.

So we have taken enormous steps in including more recently the Foreign Effective Market Review, which will effectively set up a proper regulatory

environment for seven key benchmarks.

AMANPOUR: And it's --

LEADSOM: So things have changed.

AMANPOUR: -- changed somewhat, but I mean, let's face it. For the ordinary punter, such as myself, who's not really into finance like this,

all I know is that every time we turn up, it seems, there's another scandal. It's not so long since LIBOR. Britain has now lost the right to

set that rate.

And accountability seems not to be taken seriously by those who are colluding in this manner.

LEADSOM: Well, I can only agree. I mean, I have to stress, it's a small number of corrupt individuals who quite frankly are breathtakingly

arrogant, in particular after the LIBOR scandal itself, to still think that they could possibly -- I mean, actually stupid, too, to think that they

were going to get away with deliberately manipulating foreign exchange prices.

AMANPOUR: Does this kind of collusion, corruption as you call it, is it actually a crime?

And should it be made a crime?

LEADSOM: I think that the issue is that there is just an attitude in dealing rooms that needs to change. It's just a kind of a, you know, let's

meet at a bar and let's discuss how we can make some more money for ourselves. And that absolutely has to change.

So banks need to put in place the means to prevent it from happening. And we've got the Serious Fraud Office, who are investigating whether there

is some criminal activity that's taken place. And they announced that some months ago.

And obviously that's going to take its course. And I sincerely hope that they do find the ability to literally send people to prison over this.

I think that certainly taxpayers in Britain would feel a lot better if they felt those responsible went to prison.

AMANPOUR: The Financial Conduct Authority said, at UBS, which is one of these banks, failings happened despite the fact that the bank had

received whistleblower reports over two years, alleging such misconduct by FX traders, foreign exchange traders.

So, again, you know, they know it; it's still going on.

Are these fines that have been announced, these multibillion-dollar fines, going to make any dent in what is a multitrillion-dollar exchange?

LEADSOM: Well, the -- certainly the fines are material for the banks concerned. So the fines do have an impact.

But nevertheless, as you rightly point out, the -- some of the appalling behavior, where, in spite of everything that happened with LIBOR,

with all of the investigation that went on around LIBOR, with all of the new regulatory environment, with the new rules that were brought in, the

new criminal sanctions that were brought in, for a certain number of people to still think it was OK to go around playing, frankly, kids' games around

the deliberate manipulation that cost people in their mortgages, in their businesses, in the -- in their holidays, it's just completely, utterly

unacceptable.

And I certainly hope that, following this latest scandal, that it is absolutely unacceptable and that all traders realize it is utterly

unacceptable to carry on with that sort of behavior.

AMANPOUR: And finally, where does this money go, these fines?

Where are they going to be distributed?

LEADSOM: Yes. Well, it used to be the case when the FCA put fines on a firm, that the fines went to reducing the cost of regulation. So in

other words, it went back to the industry.

But what the chancellor has done is to change that so that any fines from any wrongdoing now goes to the taxpayer. So in fact, of course, those

fines are quite significant.

And it will give us the opportunity, as with the LIBOR fines, where we spent that money of helping the armed forces, the people who do some of the

best jobs for us in this country, and they deserve to have that money spent on improving their housing and the facilities available to them.

And so it's certainly our intention that we will spend these fines on projects that will serve the public.

AMANPOUR: Well, out of that mess, if that happens, a little bit of a silver lining.

Andrea Leadsom, thank you very much indeed for joining me tonight.

LEADSOM: Thanks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now Planet Earth has delivered a landmark deal to combat climate change. Standing side by side, the presidents of China and the

United States have vowed to cut carbon emissions.

And in space, history has just been made -- up next, more on the story which could shed more light on how we all began.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world of sheer breathtaking human ingenuity. Imagine a spacecraft the size of a washing machine

landing on a speeding ball of ice 510 million kilometers away from Earth for the very first time. Today it happened, and Mission Control in

Darmstadt, Germany, erupted into cheers.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Now landing on a comet is major by any space standards.

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AMANPOUR: Comets and their graceful tails shooting across the heavens have been observed since ancient times. But no one knows what secrets they

hold. Anxiously awaiting touchdown, a top NASA scientist told our Fred Pleitgen why the spacecraft's mission is so vital.

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JAMES GREEN, DIRECTOR OF PLANETARY SCIENCE, NASA: These comets are made up of dust material, gases and ices in a combination that's been

brought together at the very beginning of the solar system. In fact, these comets are older than the Earth itself, the first things that have formed.

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AMANPOUR: And so comets are frozen capsules from the very beginning of our solar system and scientists hope this one will hold the answers to

some of life's essential questions, like where do we come from? How is life possible?

Ten years ago, the iPhone, Twitter, YouTube were all still distant dreams. But the Rosetta Spacecraft was already en route to Comet 67P.

Along the way, in 2007, it took this selfie with Mars. But the landing today was fraught with tension. The comet is only a few kilometers wide,

hardly bigger than Central London and has barely any gravity.

So rather than simply touch down like on the moon 45 years ago, this one had to anchor itself to the surface.

And get this: in our world of instant satellite communications, it took 28 minutes for the signal announcing the landing to reach Earth. And

to deliver those answers about where we all begin, it'll need to remain on the comet as it approaches the sun, melts and begins to disintegrate.

In Greek mythology, Icarus' wings melted when he flew too close to the sun, but we can only hope that this winged messenger will survive and open

up a whole new world of knowledge.

And that is it for our program tonight. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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