Taliban talks, al Qaeda raps, and a Brit in prison in Laos

Nic Robertson obtained an incredible exclusive interview this week with a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban. If you haven't yet seen it, the piece ran Tuesday on AC360:

Throughout the day, Nic was interviewed by other anchors about the situation in Afghanistan. Here, John Roberts on American Morning:

Later, TJ Holmes on NewsRoom:

And last is Roland Martin (and panel) on No Bias, No Bull:

That same day, Paula Newton had a piece on American Morning about al Qaeda's latest recruitment drive, aimed to attract young American and Western European men to come to Somalia for terrorist training. Clips posted on the internet use modern music and graphics to make them more accessible to the current generation of TV watchers:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You may have heard reports about Samantha Orobator, the 20-year-old British woman who has been locked up in jail in Laos since the beginning of August on charges (no trial so far) of drug possession. She is five months pregnant. (Do the math.) Laos has said that if she is found guilty at trial she will not be executed while pregnant; now England has worked out a deal whereby she may be allowed to serve her sentence in a British jail. Arwa Damon reports from Laos on what's been happening:

So what is it like for a Westerner to be locked up in a country that did not write their laws based on the Magna Carta? Phil Black talks to a woman in Brisbane, Australia who spent 10 months in the same prison in Laos:

And that's a look at some of the international coverage so far this week. See you Saturday with WITW!

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.