Nigerian Government Makes Deal for Schoolgirls' Release
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. There is more "Quest Means Business" in a just moment. This is CNN and on this network the news always comes first. Nigeria's government's agreed to a deal to free the missing school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. The girls were abducted from a boarding school in April. Now the government says it expects to secure their release next week. CNN's Diana Magnay is with us from Johannesburg.</s>DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Richard. Well, it's more that the government says that they want to secure further details about their release next week. I'd be very surprised if we saw the release of the girls next week, and indeed I'd be quite relieved if we do -- surprised if we do see their release. You see, we have heard nothing from Boko Haram's site about these supposed negotiations. And also the timing seems quite peculiar. There will be a huge rally in Abudja tomorrow where President Goodluck Johnathan is going to -- expected to announce his bid to run for reelection next February. And of course releasing the girls, securing the girls would be a massive boost to that campaign, probably in the form of a prisoner swap where Boko Haram operatives would be released back to further wage that insurgency in the northeast of the country, Richard.</s>QUEST: Diana Magnay with more on that in the hours ahead. Diana's in Johannesburg. The other news stories -- the total number of confirmed Ebola cases in West Africa, Spain and the United States is now past 9,200. New figures from the World Health Organization show there have been more than 4,500 deaths from the virus, 239 of which were healthcare workers. Hong Kong police have arrested 26 people after pro-democracy protestors clashed with police early on Saturday. Around 9,000 people are said to be taking part in the protests. Hong Kong hospital authorities say at least 240 people had been injured in pro-democracy protests in the past 24 hours. Four men have appeared before a London court on Friday on charges of intending to commit acts of terror. Land (ph) (inaudible) charge issued by Scotland Yard. The four are accused of taking an oath of allegiance to the militant group ISIS. And Russia has agreed to renew gas supplies to Ukraine for the winter. The Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday they'd negotiated on all the parameters of the deal since Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko said some issues remain. A Carnival cruise ship is returning to Texas, and onboard is a passenger who may have been exposed to samples of body fluid taken from an Ebola victim. Now, the woman passenger is a lab worker, currently who's in \voluntary quarantine onboard the Carnival Magic. Health officials warn she may have handled specimens taken from Thomas Duncan, the Liberian patient who died earlier this month. Carnival has issued this statement -- "The individual has no symptoms and has been isolated in an extreme abundance of caution. We are in close contact with the CDC and at this time it has been determined that the appropriate course of action is simply to keep the guest in isolation on board." Carnival is also noting that none of its ships go to the Ebola-affected areas of the world. Well, on this program you're going to hear from the people who matter. And that in this case is the Carnival Chief Excec Arnold Donald who joins me in the C-Suite. Good evening, sir.</s>ARNOLD DONALD, CEO & PRESIDENT, CARNIVAL CORPORATION: Good to see you, Richard. Good, how are you?</s>QUEST: We can go through this at a fair click. Your understanding of the situation tonight of the passenger who requested to be let off in Belize, the Belizean government wouldn't allow it. He must have been pretty hacked off that you got to bring her.</s>DONALD: Well, you know we respect every country and we respect all appropriate organizations. In this particular case, as you mentioned, the woman is a lab supervisor in a lab that handled some specimens. She has no symptoms whatsoever, and in terms of why she wanted to leave is because there's been a change in the protocol for CDC for monitoring --</s>QUEST: Right.</s>DONALD: -- people who have had some possibility of it.</s>QUEST: So, she will stay onboard the ship until it gets back to Texas?</s>DONALD: She'll stay onboard the ship, she's in isolation, she's 19 days past the point of any possible initial contact, and she never had any direct contact with the patient.</s>QUEST: Will you talk more generally on this issue, because you board thousands -- tens of thousands of passengers a week? You must be very concerned about how you now deal with what is a growing public health -- almost hysteria.</s>DONALD: Well, you know, we have a lot of practices in place. You know, that we've had incidents in the past -- SARs, H1N1, etc. So we have a lot of experience in the cruise industry -- not just our brand Carnival and other eight brands, but the industry has a lot of experience in dealing with people -- even with influenza. You know, the norovirus that people talk so often about, which is a total myth in terms of it being a cruise type of virus. Go ahead.</s>QUEST: But you -- are you elevating all of this now?</s>DONALD: No what we've done, there are protocols established for everything, and the CDC has protocols in place. We're following those protocols as they expand the protocols -- we follow those. But we have many procedures in place to first help guests self-identify, we screen, we track travel records, etc.</s>QUEST: Let's talk about the industry and your own ships. It's growing. It's growing very fast --</s>DONALD: Yes.</s>QUEST: -- particularly in China, and I wonder, you know, this cruising industry just keeps growing, but you keep getting knocked from one side to the other -- by environment issues, health issues. But still it grows.</s>DONALD: You know, we get some media attention, we get other attention, but the bottom line is the cruise industry is vibrant, it's growing. We just celebrated a third quarter where we exceed our guidance for the quarter. We elevated our guidance for the full year, we put the quarter by 15 percent, we elevated the guidance for the full year, the mid-point -- even more than that. We've had more people in the Caribbean sail this year. We had 20 percent more guests (inaudible) --</s>QUEST: But that's not your growth area -- forgive me -- that's not your growth area.</s>DONALD: Well, you know the world is our growth area, but China. China -- I just returned from China. And I was at the CCYA Conference -- Y-I-A Conference -- in Tianjin, and China, it's going to be the world's largest cruise market at some point in the future. Today, we're the largest in China. We have four ships. The fourth ship -- the Costa Serena will be sailing on next year from China. We even have a world cruise that's home ported from China sourcing Chinese guests. Eighty-six days on a ship, when usually they cruise for four or five days.</s>QUEST: Which fundamentally brings us back as we finish to this point that -- as a global company --</s>DONALD: Yes.</s>QUEST: -- with local cultures, --</s>DONALD: Yes.</s>QUEST: -- with local cultures --</s>DONALD: Yes.</s>QUEST: -- and different issues -- political, geopolitical, healthcare, all these issues that you have to deal with -- you can't take any chances on something like this. This --</s>DONALD: Oh, yes.</s>QUEST: -- this has to be first. I mean this Ebola crisis, for example, has to be on your desk.</s>DONALD: First and foremost, health and safety -- for our guests and for our crew is always paramount. This is another example of it, but it's always paramount. So we have many protocols in place, and we're very well- prepared for these types of things.</s>QUEST: And you as the CEO are personally now watching this?</s>DONALD: Oh, absolutely. I've had several conversations with our team and I've had conversations with various government officials as well. So, absolutely, we pay close attention to it, but, you know, I want to emphasize that this, while exceptional for Ebola, this is normal practice in the cruise industry. We manage these things -- that's what we do.</s>QUEST: A growing industry which you need to be --.</s>DONALD: We will (ph).</s>QUEST: Thank you very much.</s>DONALD: Yes, thank you very much.</s>QUEST: Good to see you as always. Thank you very much indeed.</s>DONALD: (Inaudible), Richard, thank you.</s>QUEST: Now, the weather forecast where you are. Mistress Harrison is at the World Weather Center for us this evening. Good evening, Ma'am.</s>JENNY HARRISON, CNN INTERNATIONAL METEOROLOGIST: Evening to you, Richard. Yes, you know, the place to watch I'm afraid over the next few hours is Bermuda because they've got this hurricane of course. It is bearing down - - look at this. You can actually barely see now anything. But this is a live webcam coming from Bermuda, and let me tell you the last few hours -- actually just in the last 45 minutes -- it has rapidly deteriorated, because the winds are really picking up, the rain is really coming down. Here are two locations -- this is a buoy just sort of at the northern end of it the island. Winds sustained at nearly 50 kilometers an hour coming from the east and then we've got winds sustained here on Hamilton -- that's the capital of course -- and that -- those winds there you can see it's 27 kilometers an hour. So, this is what has been happening the last few hours. And look at this - - we've had a wind gust been already reported again in Hamilton of 100 kilometers an hour. That is the way it is going to go. This is the latest in terms of what is going on where the buoy is positioned just off the coast. It is a large storm system, that one, so this is the latest satellite. That shows you where the eye is. And guess what? The strongest winds are going to be on the back side of this system, so if you think those winds are strong now at just over 100 kilometers an hour, they are going to get stronger. We've got winds sustained at 185 kilometers an hour, gusting 250, it is going to stay a strong storm as it literally passes over the island. And then, it will indeed continue across the Northern Atlantic. That is obviously 72 hours away, but it will eventually potentially impact Northern and Western sections of the U.K. Watch this again as it comes through. This is just showing you the forecast winds. That pink you can see, that is going to be the strongest winds. We could well have gusts in about -- to about -- 160 kilometers an hour. The rain is already coming in of course. It will get heavier as the storm moves through. It's moving fairly quickly, the storm, so that's a good thing when it comes to the rain. And actually again, the heaviest rain -- there's Bermuda. The heaviest rain is actually off to the north and the west. As I say, we've got some very strong winds heading across Bermuda. Also, this next system, ahead of what could be the remnants of that, is heading across the northwest of Europe. Very unsettled across the north and some very, very strong winds. This is the rain coming through. We've got some warnings in place as well for the rain and also because of the winds. But just have a look at these winds across the northwest. We've got winds here gusting to around 80 kilometers an hour, so Richard, this weekend be prepared. And not only because of the hurricane, but because of these strong winds across the north and the west of Europe.</s>QUEST: And I'm going to Kiev tonight, and thank you for the forecast into all of what's happening in Europe. Thank you, Jenny Harrison at the World Weather Center. Now, this weekend's "Best of Quest" where the Bank of England governor is our "Reading for Leading" guest. Mark Carney is currently enjoying a historical fiction.</s>MARK CARNEY, GOVERNOR, BANK OF ENGLAND: I'm reading a novel called "The Orenda" by Joseph Boyden who is a Canadian maitee (ph) writer which is set -- it's in the Huron Iroquois warriors in -- well, centuries ago. "From both shores of this wide river that the Huron call the Snake, Iroquois dozens and dozens of them, pour into canoes hidden carefully in the tall grasses. Some are already in the water and closing in on a few of our stragglers. I watch as their archers in front pull back on their bows and release."</s>QUEST: And that's "Quest Means Business" for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead,