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The Amanpour Hour

Interview with Environmentalist and Author Bill McKibben; Interview with Emmett Till's Cousin Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr.; Interview with "If Emmett Till Lived" Curator Sarah Elizabeth Lewis; Japan's "Sleep Tech"; Interview with Bestselling Novelist Dave Eggers; Millions in Somalia Facing Hunter amid Long Drought. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired August 01, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:30]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here is where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Europe burns as wildfires scorch the continent. It's a climate wake-up call. Who's listening to the solutions?

I asked renowned environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.

Plus --

REV. WHEELER PARKER JR., COUSIN OF EMMETT TILL: He speaks louder in death, and he accomplished more in death than he would if he had lived.

AMANPOUR: 71 years since the brutal lynching of Emmett Till. A new exhibit imagines him reaching 85 and reminds us of the ongoing fight for racial equality.

Curator, Sarah Lewis, joins me with Till's cousin, the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. He's one of the last to have seen him alive.

Then finding sleep in a stressful world. Hanako Montgomery reports on the new tech that says it can bring on disease anywhere.

Also on the program, my conversation with the bestselling novelist Dave Eggers about his new novel, "Contrapposto" and protecting children from A.I.

DAVE EGGERS, BESTSELLING NOVELIST: Not even one ounce of A.I. can be allowed in the humanities and youth education.

AMANPOUR: Plus, as the climate crisis is on roaring display around the world, including Somalia, from my archive, that country has staggered under droughts and famines for 30 years. But back then, international aid created space for survival.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

And here in Europe, it's fire on all sides. In France and Spain, massive blazes under temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, displaced hundreds of thousands of people across the two countries, and even threatening urban centers like Madrid and Bordeaux.

This kind of devastation hasn't been seen in decades, and the leaders of France and Spain made clear it is not going away any time soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEDRO SANCHEZ, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This is no longer an exception. It is the new reality. Summers are becoming increasingly difficult, destructive, and therefore deadly.

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): The situation we are dealing with today is the most severe we have ever recorded, the toughest since the Second World War. More than 160,000 hectares have already burned, and the season is far from over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: But this climate change-fueled catastrophe isn't just in France and Spain. There have been wildfires in Ireland. Here in the U.K. we've just had our fourth heat wave with swaths of this country declaring a drought.

In the United States, people are sweltering beneath the third heat dome in a month, all as wildfires rage across North America.

So, how can we get on top of this challenge? Or is it too late to fix the problems that we've created?

Well, my next guest thinks there is still time. Bill McKibben is a globally recognized author and environmentalist. His latest book is called "Here Comes The Sun", and he joins me from Vermont.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Bill McKibben, welcome back to the program.

Just a reaction to what Prime Minister Sanchez and Emmanuel Macron said. I mean, I was really horrified when I heard Macron say they're facing the worst crisis since World War II.

BILL MCKIBBEN, ENVIRONMENTALIST: Well, of course, he's correct. And he's joined by leaders by now in virtually every part of the world. We're living out this story in place after place after place.

Where we live here in Vermont, we spent the last week with our air just turned orange by record fires in Ontario pouring smoke down upon us.

It's going to get worse before it gets better. But the only way out of it is the way that, ironically, Spain has been starting to pioneer the rapid adoption of clean energy technology. It gives us some hope of staunching the flow of carbon into the atmosphere from fossil fuels.

AMANPOUR: So, that's what I want to talk to you about, because you have a lot of amazing facts and experiences for us to look at from countries and others that are actually doing the right thing on trying to mitigate climate change.

But first, I want to ask you, because the next big event, I think, is going to be El Nino. Tell us what that is and what that will affect after this summer of wildfires.

MCKIBBEN: Yes. I'm afraid this is the appetizer and we're headed for the very main course over the next 12 months.

[11:04:48]

MCKIBBEN: The heat now building in the Pacific, which is what an El Nino is, will be expressed into the atmosphere over the next year. And it's almost certain now that we will set new records for the hottest year in human history.

And in fact, there's increasing speculation studies yesterday that show we may, for a month or two, go past that 2.0 degrees Celsius mark that the Paris Conference of 2015 was supposed to do everything to keep us away from.

We're going to get a foretaste over the next year of what the weather from 2035 or 2040 will be like. And I'm afraid what it'll be like is even more chaos on the scale that we're seeing in France, in Spain, in so many places right now.

AMANPOUR: And so, you know, when we read and when I research for this interview, there is obviously good news. And I think it's really important to put the good news out so that people can see exactly what you're saying, that there are methods to actually keep it under control, even if we can't stop it.

And I was really taken by the report that in -- sorry, 2025, all new electricity demands around the world were met by green power. That's pretty amazing.

I don't think many people know that. And I just wonder, you know, what you think about -- or how you think, for instance, the United States, could they have this solar powered free electricity for most of most of the day -- daylight hours?

MCKIBBEN: The U.S. is where we invented solar panels. 1954 at Bell Labs in New Jersey. We could, of course, be doing this. We're just not because, as candidate Trump said to the oil industry during his campaign, give me a billion dollars in donations and I'll give you anything you want.

What they wanted was to get rid of Joe Biden's efforts to build out clean, green technology.

But the rest of the world is moving in different speeds in the right direction. And some of the stories are remarkable. Look at Pakistan, a poor country that suffered grievously from climate change, but has the geographic advantage of a border with China.

No government program, just individual Pakistanis importing cheap Chinese solar panels and going on YouTube to figure out how to put them together. They've built the equivalent of half the country's national electric grid in 18 months.

I mean, it is amazing what this technology is capable of if we really got behind it and pushed.

We have an obvious group project as a world if we chose to adopt it and that is to, in very short order, build out sun and wind and batteries such that the planet runs on something other than coal and gas and oil.

And A, we can begin to ameliorate the climate crisis; and B, we can stop fighting some of these stupid wars. No one's going to fight a war over sunshine, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: And for a long time, renewables seemed to be more cumbersome, required more, quote, "sacrifice to use", may have been more expensive than good old, you know, fossil fuels.

What is the reality of the price right now? People who use renewables as much as they can, are they paying more for their energy or less?

MCKIBBEN: Five years ago or so, we passed some invisible line on this planet where it became cheaper to produce energy from the sun and the wind than from fossil fuel.

Now, the cost of renewable energy is all up front. You have to buy the solar panel. But once you have, then the energy is delivered for free every morning when the sun rises above the horizon.

And now, we have cheap battery technology to allow us to store the afternoon away and use it at night.

So, that's what's been so transformative. And frankly, that's why the fossil fuel industry is so terrified and why they're working so hard and so corruptly to game the system to keep it from getting even more of a foothold.

AMANPOUR: But just to be clear, it's not too late to stop and take the right path.

MCKIBBEN: Not at all. We're obviously wasting time now. We can and should be building out renewable energy in all the places that are possible.

America needs -- America is going to be the caboose for all here, but we need to join that train and fast.

AMANPOUR: OK. Bill McKibben, thank you so much for being with us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Next, a look at America's dark past and a life that could have been. A new exhibition reimagines the life of Emmett Till if he hadn't been lynched at the age of 14.

Also ahead, my conversation with the author, Dave Eggers, about what he really means about being an artist in a world where A.I. keeps gaining ground.

[11:09:44]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And we turn now to one of the darkest chapters of America's past. On August 28th, 1955 14-year-old Emmett Till was abducted, beaten, and lynched while visiting his family in Mississippi.

[11:14:42]

AMANPOUR: More than 50,000 people attended his funeral, where his mother had requested an open casket so that America and the world could see the abject horror racists had wrought on her son.

All these years later, as the struggle for basic equality carries on, a new exhibition is asking what Till's life would have been had he lived.

It's at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, and it's the brainchild of historian and curator Sarah Lewis, who's working with Till's cousin, the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. He was the last living witness to have seen Till alive. They told me why his story still feels so relevant today.

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AMANPOUR: Reverend Parker and Sarah Lewis, welcome to the program. Can I ask you, Reverend, it would be Emmett Till's 85th birthday this week. As you know, the governor of Illinois has declared his birthday, July 25th, as Emmett Till Day. And many say that his killing was the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement.

I want to ask you a personal question, obviously. What do you personally remember about your cousin, and particularly that very last day when you saw him being dragged from your house?

PARKER JR.: Wow. That's a powerful question. It's loaded. I remember very well, and the atmosphere in the house, 2:30 in the morning, dark as a thousand midnights, and thinking and wondering what's going to happen.

He had no idea what was becoming of him or where he was going or what they were going to do to him. He had no way of knowing. They tried to prepare him, but he had nothing to let him know exactly what he was facing.

It's a very helpless, helpless, helpless feeling. I can't find the words to describe the feeling.

AMANPOUR: Oh, that is so hard to hear, and I really feel for you. I want to ask you, Sarah, because Rosa Parks had said that she thought of Emmett Till when she refused to get up and vacate her seat under orders on that famous bus.

What was it about this story and this person, Emmett Till, that made you want to do this exhibit now?

SARAH ELIZABETH LEWIS, CURATOR, "IF EMMETT TILL LIVED": It's impossible to understand American history and the catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement without engaging with the history and life of Emmett Till.

I decided to create an exhibition, a creative monument, and a book to celebrate his unlived life when I began to see for myself the decades of resistance that have taken place in defiance of the attempts to memorialize and to honor Till.

And those acts of resistance, which include the bullet-shot marker that's meant to honor the site where Emmett Till's body was brought out of the Tallahatchie River, in Greybull Landing in Mississippi, to many others, really represent why bravery is required to confront American history.

When you come to see the consistent efforts of resistance to honoring even 70 years later Emmett Till's life, it forces a level of urgency in you, and as it did in me, to contribute and to do what's required to engage with this legacy.

I had my life transformed by meeting Mamie Till-Mobley when I was just 14 as well. And in that, years later, began to see that she set forth a motto that we're still engaging with today, "let the world see," she said, "what they did to my son."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMIE TILL-MOBLEY, EMMETT TILL'S MOTHER: Mr. Rayner asked me, he said, do you want me to touch the body up? I said, no, Mr. Rayner, let the people see what I've seen.

I was just willing to bear it all. I think everybody needed to know what had happened to Emmett Till.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Well, let me ask you, Sarah, we've asked you both to choose a couple of images that you want to talk about in this exhibit.

So, tell me about one of the ones that you've selected, and what it means to you, Sarah. You know, had he lived, what would his life have been like? LEWIS: Yes. A photograph by Stephen Mark, 1988. Young boy suspended in the air, thrown up by his father, for me is an emblem of this question, "what if Emmett Till lived"?

[11:19:40]

LEWIS: This photograph is one that jolted me when I looked through 18,000 images in this collection at this Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, where the exhibition is held.

I asked myself, who could Till have been, as I looked at this young boy, confidently suspended in midair, thought of all I had learned about Emmett, who Reverend Parker knows as Bobo -- that he loved jokes, he was constantly helping others, that he loved to fish, go to the beach. He could have been a minister, he could have been a leader.

And then caught myself in that act of imagination, thinking of Till as that father. And had to catch myself as I realized that he couldn't have been.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, Reverend, about -- tell me a particular image that you've chosen for us and why you chose it.

PARKER JR.: The particular image I chose reflects the time, during that time, for that time. And it shows that we had to be creative.

If you notice my image, it had no tricycles or bicycles or bought things from the store. You had to create games, hopscotch and things that cost no money, and we got good at it.

So, it takes me back there right away, and that's where we lived. And we had more fun than the law allowed doing those things.

AMANPOUR: And what clearly was not a lot of fun for you all those years later is visiting the barn, and we have that image, where your cousin was tortured and lynched. He was killed. He was murdered. He was assassinated.

What do you think when you go to that place, which must be -- must be just so utterly painful? And you're 87 years old.

PARKER JR.: I learned from this story, it's not a pretty story. It's an ugly story, but it's American history. And it's so much to learn, and so much good came out of it.

But at the same time, I'd rather have him not have had the story. But the life -- he gave his life, so to speak, that others may live or that others may have a better life, not intentionally.

So, I have mixed emotions, you know. We would rather for it not to have happened, but he speaks louder in death, and he accomplishes more in death than he would have yet lived.

AMANPOUR: It's an amazing story. "If Emmett Till Lived" is an amazing idea for an exhibit.

Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., thank you both so much indeed for joining us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Another reminder of this long, unfinished struggle here in the U.K. this week, as the country marked 193 years since parliament abolished slavery in 1833.

Coming up --

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HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This isn't your average jacket. It's one specifically designed to help you fall asleep anytime and anywhere.

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AMANPOUR: What can one of the world's most sleep-deprived countries teach us about how to get a good night's rest? A look at Japan's booming sleep tech industry. That's next.

[11:23:12]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

By now, we all surely know about the importance of sleep for our health. But how far would we all go to get a really good night's rest?

Japan is one of the world's most sleep-deprived countries, and it's estimated to cost the government more than $100 billion a year. The country's own prime minister famously said that she sleeps less than three hours a night.

Now, Japanese researchers are using science to create weird and wonderful gadgets that they hope will give people longer lie-ins.

Here's what CNN's Hanako Montgomery discovered in her report from Tokyo.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANAKO MONTGOMERY: This isn't your average jacket. It's one specifically designed to help you fall asleep anytime and anywhere.

So, I'm going to try to take a 10-minute nap in this chair and let you know how my sleep was. Good night.

The flashing red light inside the hood is meant to help me drift off, while this ring tracks my heart rate and body temperature.

If my pulse stays too high, the jacket plays a lullaby.

So, I don't think I slept, but I feel very refreshed. And I actually feel a little bit more relaxed than I did when I first put on this jacket.

Placebo effect? Maybe. Either way, Teppei Ogata says the goal is to tackle a national issue, sleep deprivation.

TEPPEI OGATA, SLEEP TECH DESIGNER, NTT DXPN (through translator): In Japan, it's really cool to work hard. It's like a badge of honor. That unhealthy culture still hasn't gone away. It's become a major social problem in Japan.

MONTGOMERY: Japan sleeps less than any other developed country. Research has linked too little sleep to an increased risk of heart disease, obesity, and stroke. But it's also costing Japan an estimated 3 percent of its GDP each year.

[11:29:50]

MONTGOMERY: Now, to help the nation catch more Zs, the government is betting on Sleep Tech, a market expected to top $98 million by 2027.

Gadgets include a box you can sleep in standing up, a bed that lies flat when you doze off, even a hotel that tracks your night's sleep.

In here, an infrared camera checks if you snore.

Then there's this machine in the back here, also to measure how much you're snoring. And they tell me that this mattress also helps you improve your sleep because it can tell how much you're moving in your sleep.

But do these products actually help, or are they just expensive bedtime accessories?

MASASHI YANAGIHARA, SLEEP MEDICINE EXPERT: Many of them don't have a very solid evidence for the effect, unfortunately.

MONTGOMERY: Yanagihara says Japan's sleep problem starts young.

YANAGIHARA: Japanese kids are already very much sleep-deprived, partly because they have this not only a regular school, you know, most of them actually go to after-school school.

Almost the nation is teaching them that sleepiness during the daytime is a normal thing, which is not true.

MONTGOMERY: So, the biggest sleep aid might not be another gadget, but changing the culture around rest.

Good night and good luck on getting a good night's sleep.

Hanako Montgomery, CNN, Tokyo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Are you feeling it yet?

Coming up, the bestselling author, Dave Eggers, on his new novel, why he needs to isolate himself on a boat with no wi-fi just to write. Bring on those social media bands, he says.

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EGGERS: They will sometimes find workarounds. My kids are 17 and 20. They tell me about every workaround, but we do have to protect them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:31:38]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And now to a novel that's reflecting on art, the artist and the things that sometimes get in the way.

"Contrapposto" is the latest project by the bestselling author, Dave Eggers. It's a coming-of-age novel and a love story that explores the value we place on human creativity in a world adjusting for A.I.

A familiar topic for Eggers, whose acclaimed novel "The Circle" also dealt with social media and the perils of rapidly advancing technology.

Now, as top staffers at some of the world's biggest A.I. companies urge the U.S. government to slow down while people like Mark Zuckerberg urge the exact opposite, I sat down with the author here in London to talk about what he thinks can be done to protect our society, our children and our art.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So, I want you to give me your anti-A.I. rant.

EGGERS: Well --

AMANPOUR: What do you say to a 10-year-old, for instance, who wants to be a writer?

EGGERS: You have a 10-year-old, who is unprecedented in the history of the world, There's never been anyone like that person. It can't be. And so, they have so much to say. They have seen the world only the way that they can see it.

So, to think about that one-of-a-kind-in-the-history-of-humanity person shopping their vision out to a machine, how tragic that is. That's beyond dystopian.

It cannot be allowed. Not even one ounce of A.I. can be allowed in the humanities in youth education.

AMANPOUR: So, that's a pretty bold declaration. I absolutely get where it comes from. Because you're creative. Because of -- you know, we're all individuals and no machine can do what we can do.

But are you swimming against the tide?

EGGERS: I think this summer is the summer. If you talk to teachers, everybody's trying to get policies in place and get it straight before the fall.

And most teachers I talk to are absolutists. No amount of A.I. is safe. And they spend 20 hours a week policing their kids now. Did they cheat? Did they use this? Did they do that?

So, it's made public education teachers, their jobs so much more difficult. It engenders suspicion. It engenders this unleveled playing field. And it most affects kids who are learning the second and third language, who are most inclined to cheat because they want to reach grade level quicker.

So, for every one of those students, they become voiceless. So, we're about to lose an entire generation who will never speak authentically in their own voice unless we say none at all through K through the last year in college.

AMANPOUR: Whoa. K through the last year in college.

EGGERS: It solves nothing. There was never a problem that this tool solved. We were doing quite well as writers. In this country, you had a few good writers. And so, what was it there to solve? Nothing. It improves nothing in the humanities.

AMANPOUR: So, now, let's get to the story of "Contrapposto." So, it's Cricket and is it Olympia?

EGGERS: Olympia, yes.

AMANPOUR: Exactly. And they are -- they meet as young kids at school, right? And they want to be artists. So, it's that journey plus their own relationship. Give us a little synopsis.

EGGERS: Well, they meet when he's nine and she's 10. And she's this exotic, much more worldly, eloquent, knowledgeable person. And she gives him his first public commission, which is to deface a public play structure with horrible things.

But they say these horrible things, and he writes them in Old English calligraphy to make it artful. And so, that to him is his first platform, his first authentic outside audience. And forever after that, he's devoted to her.

[11:39:50]

AMANPOUR: And does he get -- what happens to him for defacing this? And it's pornographic, you say, not nice things but --

EGGERS: Yes, I don't know what we could say. Yes. It's --

AMANPOUR: No, you can say it.

EGGERS: It's pretty pornographic. He doesn't know what any of these words mean.

AMANPOUR: Right.

EGGERS: He's so sort of naive.

AMANPOUR: She does, though, right?

EGGERS: She knows much more always than he does.

AMANPOUR: And why is she egging him on into that?

EGGERS: Well, she's more of a curator. She's -- forever after, it goes through 66 years in their lives, she's always trying to pull him out of obscurity, his stubborn unwillingness to compromise even a little bit and to give him a gallery show or, you know, bring him into the professional art world.

And every tiny little concession he can't make, he can't countenance these little compromises. But it frustrates her to no end. But forever, they're still committed, devoted to each other.

AMANPOUR: You've written, you know, obviously a number of novels, and you've said that, you know, compared to nonfiction, it is much more fun. Tell me about, especially today, maybe, writing novels.

EGGERS: Well, you know, I sort of alternate. I write nonfiction mostly out of a sense of outrage, and it's not a good way to spend every day.

And then, of course, the nonfiction slog. You write four words, you have to check that fact. You write four more words, you have to check.

Fiction is just fluid. It's liberated. It's totally untethered. It's so much more enjoyable on a day-to-day basis.

And to wake up without an ulcer, you know, to wake up without thinking about Trump, wake up without thinking about destruction of certain tech companies. So, this was a very healing bath.

AMANPOUR: I'm just kind of struck by how you still only have a flip phone, as far as I can gather.

EGGERS: Yes.

AMANPOUR: How you take yourself off to your boat in San Francisco to write so that you're not tempted. Tell me a little bit about your -- you know, your working habits, your mental health, your resistance to tech.

EGGERS: Yes, I was enjoying life a lot before all of this came about. So, none of it was solving anything that I needed to solve. So, there's nothing on a smartphone that I wanted.

I would use one if there was something on it that I needed, but there isn't.

And so, yes, I have the flip phone. It doesn't work abroad. So, it's just a rock in my pocket right now. And then, I -- but I do have to be really far away from the Internet to get any work done.

So, if I'm tempted or if I have it, like in the hotel tonight, I will have the Internet and then I'll spend four hours on YouTube. And so, I can't be trusted around the Internet.

But mostly I need isolation. I need to be free for eight hours a day to get anything done. And that's about eight hours on the boat in the writing position to get maybe 45 minutes of actual work done. That's my ratio. It's very sad.

AMANPOUR: Wow. Eight hours to get 45 minutes.

EGGERS: Sometimes maybe an hour's worth. I mean, it's --

AMANPOUR: Well, it's important to know that for would-be writers.

EGGERS: Yes, they -- you do need to sort of give yourself selfishly that amount of time.

AMANPOUR: So, just quickly, because I have to ask you, there's many, you know, regulations afoot in Australia and Britain, everywhere, to try to keep under-16s off social media.

EGGERS: I'm all for it. Every band.

AMANPOUR: And do you think it works? They won't just find workarounds?

EGGERS: They will sometimes find workarounds. My kids are 17 and 20. They tell me about every workaround.

But we do have to protect them. It's like we protect them from so many things that we know are dangerous -- cigarettes, alcohol, you know, steroids, vaping, whatever. We all have regulations about everything because we care about them.

For some reason, this is the Wild West. Oh, we can't restrict them. When this thing is like, it has taken so many young lives. It has made so many millions of kids deeply depressed.

And if you talk to any teenager, my son was just on a two-week retreat. No phones for anybody. Best two weeks of his life, he said, because nobody else was online. It wasn't FOMO. They didn't have to, like, worry about what they were doing.

They all want the adults in their lives to make a ruler, to protect them. It's our job to do that. And when we cede our responsibility, we disserve the young people of this world.

This is a generation at stake, and we've got to make a stand. According to all the science, all the medical studies, every little bit says every extra minute on screens is harmful.

AMANPOUR: Well, they will be reading "Contrapposto", and every minute reading will be regenerative.

Well, thank you very much indeed, Dave Eggers. EGGERS: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: You can get "Contrapposto" at your local bookstore now or online.

Coming up, as the world faces the brutal reality of climate change, from my archive, reporting from Somalia, which has faced 30 years of climate shocks, and how previous American interventions and international aid helped transform people's lives.

[11:44:41]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

This week, we've seen Europe ablaze and the U.S. face its third heat dome in a month. But of course, it's not just the western world facing the climate crisis.

Across Africa, extreme weather is taking its toll, and few know this pain better than Somalia, where climate shocks like droughts and floods have made life perilous for more than 30 years.

[11:49:45]

AMANPOUR: According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, some 6 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger right now, and concerns are only growing as aid dries up.

So from my archives this week, a close up look at how aid does make an impact. In 1992, we witnessed an emergency U.S. military intervention to end a devastating famine in Somalia.

A year later, we went back to see how the country was doing, only to find it was doing well on a diet of U.S. aid and international support. It made a real difference until they all pulled out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: The first thing a visitor gets in Baidoa is a warm welcome. There is none of the hostility you find in Mogadishu. Here, the children smile. They don't throw stones.

STUART LUXFORD, THEN-UNICEF: I have much more interaction with them here. In Mogadishu, generally, it's windows up, not walking around the streets.

Because here everything has changed. Barely a year ago, Baidoa was called the city of death. Hundreds of people starved every day. Now, this is the only feeding center left.

today they get rice and beans, not the special mix they needed just to keep them alive. Today, children online laugh and joke. at the height of the famine, so many died just waiting to get to the front of the queue.

IAN MACLEOD, THEN-UNICEF: There are no or very few walking skeletons that we saw at this stage last year. So the security that's been provided since the U.S.-led intervention last year and moving to the U.N. is really what's changed the situation here.

AMANPOUR: Today, French and other soldiers are on patrol. Militias have been disarmed. There are no more guns on the streets. People can now wield pens instead of weapons.

Teacher training courses are underway and children are going back to school. Medical facilities are working again. Mothers come to immunize their children and learn how to provide proper care.

In the market, vendors are selling food that is almost all home grown. Peace means they are able to plant and harvest again.

A man shows us his letters and his peppers. Like so many others, he has come back to his land, no longer afraid he'll be chased off by bandits.

There still aren't enough fresh water sources, but at least today, dead animals don't contaminate them. And mothers can give their babies a drink knowing it won't kill them.

Out here in the countryside, away from Mogadishu, it's very difficult to make a case for withdrawing the troops. For here, the U.N. forces have done their job. Here, their mission has been a success.

And what's worrying the people is that anarchy and the famine could return if the troops pull out too soon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we need them.

AMANPOUR: The U.N. special envoy is visiting Baidoa. The people tell him they still need help, but the forces won't stay forever.

JONATHAN HOWE, THEN-SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR SOMALIA TO THE U.N.: You will always be in our hearts. But soon you will be on your own completely.

AMANPOUR: Howe is inaugurating the new regional council? Soon it will be up to them to keep the peace and the pace that has brought Baidoa back to life in less than a year.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Baidoa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after those international aid groups and U.S. troops withdrew, the impact was dire -- displacement, conflict and hunger rapidly returned.

Now, as we enter the post aid world, Somalis are facing a double bind as the war on Iran boosts the price of oil and crucial goods like fertilizer. Coming up, a CNN series about the players, the matches and the moments

that have defined sports for decades and keep us coming back for more.

Plus, a look back at my conversation with 22-time Grand Slam winner, Rafa Nadal.

[11:53:29]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, it lifts us up, it brings us down, and more than anything, it always keeps us on the edge of our seats. From Ancient Greece right through to today, sport has always held a unique place in society, helping to shape our culture and being shaped by it.

This weekend, a new CNN series airs looking at some of the athletes' moments and cultural shifts that have defined sport in recent times, from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to today's age of social media.

"DECADES IN SPORTS" premieres on CNN on Sunday.

As a journalist and a tennis fan, I've spoken to a lot of the greats through my years as an interviewer -- from Serena Williams, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova to Roger Federer, Billie Jean King and Rafa Nadal.

We've spoken on several occasions about the difficulties and joys that come with decades performing at the highest level.

Back in 2022, Nadal had just won his 22nd Grand Slam victory and a record 14th Paris Open championship. Even after all the trophies, the fame, the riches, he said, it's always been all about the love of the game.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: 14 times, 22 grand slams, a whole load of other, you know, U.S. Open, Australian Open, two Olympic gold medals. Are you ready to declare or at least have people say, that you are now the greatest of all time? You wouldn't agree when I asked you last time.

RAFAEL NADAL, 25-TIME TENNIS GRAND SLAM CHAMPION: I honestly don't think much about that. And from the bottom of my heart, I really don't care that much, you know, you know.

[11:59:49]

NADAL: I mean, I think doesn't matter. You know, I think we achieved our dreams. I achieved my dream and I enjoy what I am doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Happiness in our post-World Cup haze as well.

That's all we have time for. Don't forget you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and join us again next week.