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Yemen's President Resigns; King of Saudi Arabia Dies; Two Japanese Men Held by ISIS; New Information on Flight 8501; Measles Outbreak Linked to Disneyland

Aired January 23, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Yemen falls. A Saudi king dies. And a deadline passes.

Chaos and confusion in the Middle East. Yemen's president resigns, and a power vacuum takes hold.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The question now is what happens next? Who does the U.S. deal with?

COSTELLO: America cutting embassy staff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we ought to get our people out. I don't want to see a hostage situation.

COSTELLO: And Saudi King Abdullah dies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The succession is going to be very important.

COSTELLO: A key U.S. ally, the 90-year-old leader being laid to rest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was probably the most progressive and liberal minded king of Saudi Arabia since the early 1970s.

COSTELLO: This morning new concerns about the stability of the volatile region.

And fate unknown. Two Japanese men held by ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kenji is not an enemy of Islamic state.

COSTELLO: Pleas from a mother this morning as a deadline passes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are serious fears here in Tokyo that perhaps ISIS never really intended to negotiate.

COSTELLO: A tense and delicate situation playing out on the world stage. Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. A new era for America's top ally in the Arab world. Thousands are gathering at Saudi Arabia's capital for the funeral of the 90-year-old King Abdullah. He died this morning after leading the oil-rich nation for just over 19 years. His death brings new uncertainty to a troubled region. To the south of Saudi Arabia, Yemen is in chaos. Its government, a critical ally to Washington, has crumbled. The U.S. State Department is scrambling to evacuate some embassy staff as others keep a wary eye on the crisis unfolding around them. We'll have more for you on that in just a minute.

But first more about Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and a driving force in the recent plunge in oil prices. They have dropped by more than half since July. So news of King Abdullah's death at such a sensitive time sent a jolt through the markets and an almost immediate jump in prices. Rana Foroohar is CNN's global economic analyst and the assistant managing editor of "Time" magazine. She joins me now from Davos, Switzerland, site of the World Economic Forum. What do you make of this jump?

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: I think any sort of change in the Middle East right now, given that things are so volatile, is going to cause a move in oil prices. It's a relatively small jump right now, and it looks as though the Saudi regime is committed to continuing to pump, as they have been doing since the summer, which is one of the reasons the prices are down. Generally when prices get this low, the Saudis, which are the major producer, will say we'll cut production, that will bring prices back up. But right now they've been trying to execute a strategy of driving the higher priced exporters out of the market, putting pressure on rival regimes like Iran, putting pressure in some cases on U.S. shale producers.

It looks as though that's going to continue. But I think the markets will be watching very closely what happens with the succession.

COSTELLO: I hear two different things. I hear the king's successor, not much will change. Other people say, well, things really could change. In your mind, who is right?

FOROOHAR: I don't expect a huge change. I don't think there would be a real political reason for the Saudis to do a 90-degree change in direction right now. I think it would really roil the oil markets. That's not what they want. I think they are probably going to continue to execute this strategy of pumping and keeping prices relatively low, maybe until the year's end, knocking out some of the higher production producers. And you're already seeing that in the U.S. About a third of U.S. shale producers have stopped and taken many of their rigs offline because they need a higher price to make that shale oil economical. So this is having a big effect on supply already. But I do think that prices are going to stay reasonably low until the end of the year.

COSTELLO: All right. Rana Foroohar, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it.

Let's head to Yemen now, where Houthi rebels now appear to be in control of the capital city of Sanaa. The U.S. State Department says it's pulling out embassy staff because of concerns over safety. But despite the risks, officials say the offices are still up and running. Chief senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is following the story for us from Beirut, Lebanon. Nick?

We seem to have lost Nick. We seem to have lost Nick and we'll try to get him back for you in just a second.

The fate of two Japanese hostages held by ISIS is unknown this morning. The deadline to pay a $200 million ransom has apparently passed. The men shown here in Iraq last summer were featured in a video released by ISIS earlier this week. Just hours before that deadline, an ISIS spokesman telling a Japanese broadcaster that a statement about the hostages would soon be released. That statement has yet to come. One of the men's mothers making a desperate plea for her son's life while trying to appeal to his captors in the process.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUNKO ISHIDO (through translator): To all members of ISIS, Kenji is not an enemy of ISIS. I really think he's a man who is able to help you as your friend once you get to know him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Since August ISIS has issued multiple videos featuring brutal beheadings, among them five western captives, including three Americans.

While Japan awaits the fate of two of its citizens, America is fighting ISIS sympathizers at home. 19-year-old Shannon Conley who now calls herself Amul Talla (ph), will be sentenced today for wanting to join ISIS. She faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, yet she didn't seem interested in talking about it. She did talk about her hairstyle. She also told CNN's Ana Cabrera quote, "I'm in a vulnerable place right now and it would be stupid of me to talk to you when I'm vulnerable." She didn't want to talk about her crime saying quote, "no comment. I'm a different person than when I came in." Yes, this is part of America's war on terror at home. So let's talk about this and the overarching war or terror. I'm joined by CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen and chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto. Welcome to you both.

Peter, I don't know what this young woman means by being a different person in light of changing her name to Amul Talla (ph), but I can guess. In the meantime, a Palestinian man stabbed 12 people in Israel, you know what happened in Paris. ISIS is causing chaos in different ways in different parts of the world, right?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, Carol. We heard the news yesterday that the U.S. ambassador in Iraq said that the Centcom and other members of the coalition have killed 6,000 ISIS fighters, and I had also heard from a reliable source that we are killing 200 ISIS fighters a month. But balanced -- a week, in fact. But balanced against that is the fact that ISIS is drawing recruits from around the world including in the United States, people who are self-affiliating. We've seen pretty reliable reports from the New York Times that ISIS group has been forming in southern Helmand, in Afghanistan. We've also seen reports on CNN that ISIS is making some inroads in Yemen, and we've also seen groups in Egypt pledge allegiance to ISIS and in Libya.

So at the same time ISIS is taking a substantial beating in Iraq, it isn't really losing ground in Syria, and we're also finding people still recruiting to it. In fact, you and I were discussing yesterday that there were -- the reliable estimates are 1,000 people are joining ISIS every month, and if you do the math on that, even though the U.S. and its allies are giving this group a tremendous beating in Iraq, it's basically a wash.

COSTELLO: So let's talk about Yemen in light of what you just said, Peter. Yemen, they don't have any government anymore. The country could fall into civil war, right? And ISIS is trying to get a foothold in that country, so what will the United States do, Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the principle threat in Yemen remains al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It is still the dominant group there, supporters, loyalists in the hundreds, perhaps dozens as counterterror officials have told me, loyal to ISIS. Now, you do have some AQAP loyalists who are sympathetic to ISIS, but in terms of operational capability, Yemen is still about AQAP. That doesn't -- certainly does not take away the threat, because this idea of self- radicalization is a real concern of U.S. counterterror officials, and they say that while AQAP and also the Khorasan Group, which you'll remember is based in Syria, is also al Qaeda tied, I've been told that the most likely attack to take place on the U.S. homeland, if not the most ambitious but the most likely, would be lone wolves, people who radicalized online like this American girl Conley, and they just make a choice on their own to do something. That's a real concern.

They may not be capable or be trained to carry out attacks like we saw in France, you know, that looks like there's an AQAP tie there for the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, but they are harder to track because they are self-radicalized. They don't need to travel to, say, Yemen or Iraq or Syria. They don't need to train there. They can just do it on their own. That's difficult to prevent frankly, and it's an easy kind of attack to carry out.

COSTELLO: I must say, authorities in the United States have been doing a fine job, right, because when you compare what's happening in the United States to what's happening in Europe, it's quite a different thing, Peter.

BERGEN: The volume is very different. I don't dispute the idea that the United States has got a pretty good handle on this, but they are also dealing with much more of a problem. The estimates we've seen are about a dozen Americans who fought with or tried to fight with ISIS or the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. We're talking about 600 Brits, 700,000 Frenchmen that have gone to Syria. The volume is really on a very different scale, and as Jim reported in Paris, there's just not enough people to follow the volume in France. We don't have that problem here in the United States. We have a pretty good handle on this. Jim Comey, the FBI director, says he's pretty confident that they have -- they know who has gone. You don't know what you don't know of course, but I think there's a very different feeling about this issue here in the United States than there would be in Europe.

COSTELLO: So, Jim, going back to Yemen for just a second. The government in Yemen was American backed, right? And American drones were supposedly taking out members of al Qaeda. People inside of our embassy are supposedly keeping an eye on things. But it's been partially evacuated right now. So what are we to make of that?

SCIUTTO: You know, Carol, it's a big deal. The drone program there has worked to some degree keeping al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula under pressure. And that requires the cooperation of the Yemeni government, and the now departed president of Yemen, President Hadi, was a big supporter of the drone program, which is a difficult thing to do in that part of the world to publicly support that. A lot of countries will privately offer help, but he publicly supported it.

That's the potential loss of a major partner in these operations. And while there is great danger to U.S. personnel on the ground, the reason you need personnel on the ground is to manage that relationship and also trade the intelligence with the Yemeni partners so that you can make those strikes effective. And if you don't have them, it takes pressure off AQAP at a time when AQAP is feeling pretty good. They are claiming credit for a major attack in a western capital. This is something that U.S. officials are very concerned about.

COSTELLO: All right. Jim Sciutto, Peter Bergen, thanks for your insight as always. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new details on the final moments of AirAsia flight 8501 from the last communication with the pilots to the moment the plane fell off the radar. We'll walk you through the timeline next.

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COSTELLO: We have new details about the final moments inside the cockpit of AirAsia 8501. Officials believe the plane climbed rapidly and then stalled shortly before it crashed, killing all 162 onboard. Let's get more from CNN aviation and government regulation correspondent, Rene Marsh. Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, we all know that things start to go wrong after the pilot asked permission to climb to a higher altitude and turn left.

Here is what the timeline looks like now. We're just getting this information from Indonesian transportation officials. Three minutes after asking for permission to turn left, we know that the plane does deviate from its path. It does turn left. Six seconds later it makes a strong and quick climb of 1,400 feet. 40 seconds later, the plane is at 37,600 feet. That means the plane increased altitude a total of 6,000 feet, all within a minute. Now, the plane eventually disappears from primary radar. Now, all of these events are unfolding in a matter of, Carol, four minutes.

It is worth noting that the A-320, the Airbus can fly up to 39,800 feet. At this point in this series of events that we just outlined, the plane did not hit its ceiling. It can operate at that 37,000 plus altitude that we just mentioned there, but passengers of course would have experienced the g-forces from such a sharp assent upwards. Carol.

COSTELLO: So is there any evidence right now because the plane was going so fast in its ascent, right, would that cause at all the plane to break apart?

MARSH: You know, we really don't know. And what we don't want to do is read too much into the time line. What we do know is this meshes and it matches with the previous information that we have received, which is the plane did increase its altitude relatively quickly. We're talking about 6,000 feet in one minute or within a minute. That is a pretty big distance when you talk about that frame of time. One minute. You would imagine if you were onboard that plane, you're going to feel that pressure pushing you downwards onto your seat because you're moving up so quickly. Does this tell us anything about why the plane crashed? I think it's too early to say. It's too early to draw any conclusions. But this does flesh out second by second, minute by minute, what was happening with the aircraft, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh reporting live from Washington. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, happiness isn't the only contagious thing at Disneyland. The controversial measles outbreak is spreading. Doctors are now weighing in.

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COSTELLO: That measles outbreak is spreading. Health offices report 50 cases are now linked to Disneyland. Most are in state in California, but a handful of park visitors did carry measles home to other states and even Mexico. Here is Paul Vercammen.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Health officials traced the measles outbreak here to the middle of December.

DR. ERIC HANDLER, ORANGE COUNTY HEALTH OFFICES: We have them throughout the county. It was initially at Disneyland, but now people need to be concerned that if they're not protected, that they should get protected, because it's in our community.

VERCAMMEN: What's frustrating health officials in Orange County, home to Disneyland, is most of the cases here involve people who did not get measles shots.

HANDLER: It's such a serious disease that if you got the vaccination, it protects you, so why aren't we doing it?

VERCAMMEN: It's a question that hangs in the air here like the measles itself. The disease is airborne. No handshake or touching required to spread the disease. HANDLER: Any confined space with a lot of people, if you have

somebody that's infectious and you're not protected, there's a 90 percent chance that you'll come down with the disease.

VERCAMMEN: That makes a theme park a good incubator with lots of people in closed spaces. Orange County says six measles patients are Disneyland employees. The theme park said in a statement, it raised awareness with employees, called cast members, about the outbreak, offered vaccinations and immunity tests. Disneyland added any cast member who may have come in contact with those who tested positive for measles was put on paid leave until their test results come back.

One measles patient is a student at nearby Huntington Beach high school. Officials report 24 classmates were told to stay home because they were not vaccinated and had close contact with the measles patient. High anxiety here that has nothing to do with thrill rides, and health officials say the tension and outbreak could have been avoided with measles shots.

Paul Vercammen, CNN, Anaheim.

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COSTELLO: OK, let's look at how the numbers in California break down. Health officers now confirm 59 cases of measles there, 42 directly linked to Disneyland. The vaccination status is known for 34 of those cases. Of the 34, 28 people were unvaccinated. One person had received one dose, and five people had received two or more doses. So if we are vaccinated, it raises the question, how protected are we? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is weighing in.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: If you're an adult and you got the measles shot and then a booster shot, you should be protected. If you're not sure about that, you can get a blood test from your doctor and find out how many antibodies you have in your blood. That will give you an idea of how much protection you have. You could just get another booster shot as well, which is what some doctors are advising their patients to do.

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COSTELLO: OK. So let's get another professional's opinion. Dr. Alexander Van Tulleken joins me now. Welcome. See, that means I may have to get a booster shot if I visit California, and that's not making me very happy.

DR. ALEXANDER VAN TULLEKEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: You don't like the needles?

COSTELLO: Don't like the needles. I should be protected. I got my measles vaccination as a child.

VAN TULLEKEN: You feel kind of cheated?

COSTELLO: I feel cheated.

(LAUGHTER)

VAN TULLEKEN: And if everyone else had their measles vaccinations, then you wouldn't need to worry. That is what is so strange about this, is that we're looking at the phenomenon of herd immunity. So provided that most people have had that, and by most with measles, we're talking about 95 percent, 98 percent vaccination rates, then you wouldn't need to worry, but now you do.

COSTELLO: So why are some adults not listening to doctors like yourself?

VAN TULLEKEN: I think the anti-vaccination movement is a really interesting phenomenon. We tend to vilify these people. We tend to say things like they are stupid, they are morons, they are selfish, things like this, and in fact these people usually are not monsters. They're just trying to protect their children. And anti- vaccinationism goes along with other kinds of -- it is consistent with other sorts of belief, a resistance to government, a concern about big pharma, a concern about your children. A kind of natural style of parenting. So not all their beliefs about all their parenting would be wrong or even consistent with things--

COSTELLO: They're just not thinking about the other person's child.

VAN TULLEKEN: I think they looked at the wrong set of evidence. If you go online and look for evidence about how bad vaccinations are, you find a huge amount. Now, almost all of it is completely wrong. But you can find scandals, you can find bad things to say about big pharma, and occasionally you can find serious scandals likes the CIA using vaccination campaigns in Pakistan to track down Osama bin Laden, all of which plays into a conspiracy theory. So my feeling is, the way we should approach that movement is undermining it with reasonableness, with education, with the kind of gentleness for the individuals concerned. But we should be stopping kids--

COSTELLO: What about laws? In California you don't have to get your child vaccinated against measles. You can opt out.

VAN TULLEKEN: You can opt out. The opting out is easier than it should be, but it's not simply a case of saying you don't want to get a vaccination. You need either a religious exemption or a letter from the health care provider.

I think that not allowing children who haven't had their vaccines into schools is a reasonable thing to do in the case of these diseases. Measles used to kill a few hundred Americans every year. By the time we eradicated in the year 2000, we had no new cases, de novo cases, in America. It wasn't endemic anymore. That was really an extraordinary achievement. To have the kind of setback we've got now with hundreds of cases a year is just extraordinary to me. So I would say for these diseases is a potentially fatal disease that can cause brain damage, severe respiratory problems, we should look at really compelling people to do it.

COSTELLO: My final question. This confuses me, shouldn't we have eradicated measles?

VAN TULLEKEN: In the States, I think it would be reasonable to say in the States and in a number of other developed countries, we did about as much as we possibly could. The problem is the cases are coming in from overseas. We have a number of cases are coming in from the places like Philippines, where it's both endemic and epidemic, they have large numbers of cases surging up certainly in 2013. So it's going to be very difficult globally, we could think about eradicating measles, but it's such a contagious disease. We need very high vaccination rates. So for the moment in the U.S., it's still a disease we need to be concerned about.

COSTELLO: Dr. Van Tulleken, thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's the NFL's version of whodunit. The two men at the center of deflategate deny any responsibility, but that is not stopping the fingers from being pointed right at them.

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