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European Migrant Crisis; Grieving Father to Bury Family in Kobani; Migrants in Hungary Refuse to Leave Train; Afghan Interpreter Stranded in Calais; French Confirm Debris Is from Missing Plane; Australia Criticized for Tough Migrant Policy; Donald Trump Pledges Allegiance to Republicans; Weather Highlights; WORLD SPORT Highlights; North Korea's Curious New Look. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired September 04, 2015 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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TIMA KURDI, AUNT OF AYLAN (voice-over): (INAUDIBLE) save them. I couldn't.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): She is the aunt of the Syrian toddler whose death shocked the world. And now she is telling the story of how his father tried to save them.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Turkey's president tells CNN that Europe should follow his country's example in handling the migrant crisis.
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HOWELL (voice-over): Girl power: a look at how that may be the latest weapon in the arsenal of North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
ALLEN (voice-over): These stories all ahead this hour. Hello and welcome. Thank you for joining us. I'm Natalie Allen.
HOWELL: And I'm George Howell. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: Turkey's president says the Western world must wake up when it comes to the growing migrant crisis in Europe.
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ALLEN (voice-over): Millions of people have been displaced now by events in their home countries, including Syria and Iraq. And many of them are headed for Europe in search of a better life. Thousands are dying along the way. Europe is responding but not in a united front.
HOWELL (voice-over): Here's the latest: in Hungary, a standoff between police and a group of migrants, a packed group of migrants on a train. They're refusing to get off; they're worried that they will be sent once again to camps.
ALLEN (voice-over): In the Czech Republic, authorities said this week that they have started to remove migrants traveling without documentation from trains. In some instances, Czech police have been marking and numbering the migrants with washable ink.
HOWELL (voice-over): And then the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron is being criticized for not doing as much to help with the crisis as other countries in Europe. A petition to accept more refugees to the U.K. now has more than 320,000 signatures.
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ALLEN: The heartrending image of a little Syrian boy lying pale and lifeless on a Turkish beach has spurred calls for the world to do more to help people fleeing Syria. The boy's father hoped to take his family to Canada, far from Syria. But now he is about to return home to bury his wife and two sons.
CNN's Hala Gorani has the story. But first, a warning: some of what you will see is disturbing.
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HALA GORANI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (voice-over): Two brothers stand close together as they pose for a photograph. The taller child is 4-year- old Galip Kurdi. The smaller one with the cheeky grin is 2-year-old Aylan, the boy we now know as the tiny victim in this harrowing image.
The picture of Aylan, face down and lifeless on a Turkish beach, has been seen by millions around the world. But that's not how his father, Abdullah, wants to remember him or his brother.
ABDULLAH KURDI, MIGRANT (through translation): Is there someone whose children are not valuable to them? The children enrapture you. They wake up in the morning.
"Daddy, I want to play in the water."
Is there anything in the world better than this?
Everything is gone.
GORANI (voice-over): Abdullah is the sole survivor from a small family from Kobani in Syria. In the early hours of Wednesday, he was with his two sons and his wife as they were swept from a capsized dinghy while attempting to cross from Turkey to Greece. He shared what happened with his sister in Canada.
TIMA KURDI: And the wave keep pushing him down. Those two boys, they were in his arms. He said he tried all his power to put them up, the water, to breathe.
And screamed, "Daddy, please, don't die."
And then when he looked in his left arm at the older boy, Galip, he was already dead. So he let him go.
And he said, "I will try to save the second one, Aylan."
He look at him, there was blood coming from his eyes. So he closed his eyes and he let him go.
He looked around for his wife. She was floating in the water, is like a balloon.
He said, "You should see how she looked like."
He says, "I did all in my power to save them. I couldn't."
GORANI (voice-over): The family wanted to join her in Canada, where she had filed a refugee application with the help of a local parliamentarian.
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FIN DONNELLY, CANADIAN PM: I delivered the letter to the minister and nothing. We waited and waited and, you know, we didn't have any action.
GORANI (voice-over): In June, the family was told their request was rejected.
Desperate to find sanctuary somewhere, they made their way here, where hope has now been lost.
ABDULLAH KURDI (through translator): I plan to sit by the grave of my wife and children and that is it.
GORANI (voice-over): Leaving behind the beach where a single little boy brought into focus the suffering of thousands -- Hala Gorani, CNN, Berlin.
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HOWELL: One of the main destinations for many fleeing the violence in Syria and Iraq is Turkey. It's also used as an access point to Europe.
Our Becky Anderson got an exclusive opportunity to sit down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and she started by asking his thoughts on that picture of a little toddler, a picture that shocked the world.
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RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRIME MINISTER OF TURKEY (through translator): When I saw that picture, while it was in a family setting unfortunately, and my children, my grandchildren, they saw the picture at the same time as me.
When we saw it we were devastated.
And we asked the question to ourselves, where is humanity?
Where is the conscience of humanity?
It's a 3-year-old child. And it's not the first time this is happening. Many children, mothers, fathers unfortunately have been drowned in the rough waters of the Mediterranean.
Only our coast guard, since the beginning of this year, have saved more than 50,000 people. This is the kind of times we're going through but this picture, of course, was what made us cry.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: Who's to blame?
ERDOGAN (through translator): To be honest, the whole Western world is to be blamed, in my opinion.
ANDERSON: You have accused Europe of turning the Mediterranean into a cemetery.
Did you mean that?
ERDOGAN (through translator): Well, yes, I meant that. I said that wholeheartedly because that's the reality on the ground, because the countries bordering around the Mediterranean, they do not want these people, no matter what the cost.
But that's not our outlook on the matter, that's not how we see it. If they are at our borders, if they want to come in, we do welcome them in as guests. And then if there are those who need to descend back to their countries, that's what we do.
But otherwise, if we have the means to house and welcome them in our country, that's what we do. And that's the reason why the number of people from Syria and Iraq in Turkey is in excess of 2 million as we speak.
For instance, Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries, including France, Hungary, well, they could easily do the same thing but unfortunately it hasn't been done so far. The same goes for Germany. I mean consider the fact that the minister from Germany was saying that Turkey should accept these people in and then amongst these people we'll pick some of those and we'll accept those people and other European countries were saying the same thing.
What kind of an approach is that?
It is not possible to understand that. I mean, just like I'm in an office of responsibility, these people are also in offices of responsibilities. So what they need to do is to conduct a joint operation and, you know, give these people an opportunity to save themselves.
And this picture you're showing, we do not want to see similar cases.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOWELL: That was our Becky Anderson, speaking with the Turkish president. And of course, you can see more of that exclusive interview with Mr. Erdogan on our website at cnn.com.
ALLEN: Some of the Syrian families who escaped the violence at home are now packed on a train near Budapest, refusing to get off. They hope to reach Germany. But riot police arrived and the migrants fear they'll be put in refugee camps again.
CNN's Arwa Damon went on board the train.
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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And everyone flooded into the station, flooded onto one of the trains. Their logic was that if they were allowing them into the station, then the road to Germany, where they're all hoping to get, must somehow be open.
This train is packed with people who don't really know exactly where it is that they're going. Some of them have heard that there are no international trains departing from this station but they're still packed into these various different cars.
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DAMON: There's a very heartbreaking scene unfolding around us right now as this train has stopped at the station because there's commotion outside with the police. People don't know if they're going to be forcibly removed from the train.
And this is a family that we have just been speaking to, who said that they escaped death in Syria only to find it here. And they're so worried about the children.
We know that there is a refugee camp located, maybe out, 30 kilometers outside of Budapest, that is why everybody is refusing to get off this train.
Now, on either side of this car that we're in, there are groups of men and youth, who are holding onto the door handles because they're afraid that the police are going to try to come on board.
Even just being here for a few hours, I mean, this is very, very difficult and especially hard for the mothers, who are struggling when it comes to holding it together. They're exhausted; they are emotionally drained. Their nerves are frayed. The kids will not stop crying. They're doing whatever it is they can to care for them but it's so difficult.
We have all been on this train for about four hours, if not longer, and people right now are just trying to do what it is that they can to try to pass the time.
There's two little girls that are sleeping on the floor right here and it's very crowded, obviously; it's very hot in here. The kids are all thirsty, they're hungry, they haven't had food. The police force outside is standing guard. And just a short while ago came through and, in Arabic, announced to everybody, asked them to get off the train, get on buses and go and report to the refugee camp to get registered and processed. The problem is, nobody here is going to do that.
They don't trust the Hungarians; they don't believe that if they get into the camp they'll ever be let out. And a lot of them are traumatized by what they already went through at one of Hungary's camps, located on its border with Serbia, where they said conditions were absolutely inhumane and they were treated like animals.
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HOWELL: And Arwa Damon and photojournalist Christian Stride (ph) actually on that train. But now we understand ran out of battery power. So they're not able to get off, but still reporting on that. We'll stay in touch with her as she continues to follow that situation.
Hungary's prime minister says once migrants have been registered there, then they become Germany's problem. But Hungary's former prime minister is taking a very different approach. He's actually taking migrants into his own home.
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FERENC GYURCSANY, FORMER HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER: I do what I can do. For a while, we took food and drink to these people and it became very clear for the family that it's not enough. There are many, many families in a very bad condition.
And we talked to our children. And finally we decided that, if we have opportunity -- we do have a relatively bigger house, according to the Hungarian standard -- this is my task, opening the house.
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HOWELL: What an example he's setting there. He told CNN that he just does not understand the country's current policy on migrants.
According to the U.N., more than 2,500 migrants and refugees have either died or gone missing just this year alone. For more on how you can help in the situation, head over to our website, cnn.com/impact.
ALLEN: The migrant crisis, of course, is on many fronts; thousands have also gathered in Calais in France. They're trying to get to the U.K., many climbing onto trains and trucks to get to the heavily guarded entrance to the Channel Tunnel.
An Afghan interpreter is among the migrants there. He says he left (INAUDIBLE) because his life was in danger for helping the British army. CNN's Phil Black reports now he's wondering if he'll ever reach the country he risked everything to help.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the outskirts of Calais, Khushal is one more lonely figure a long way from his homeland.
Exhausted and desperate, injured and limping because of his failed efforts to jump on trucks crossing the English Channel, after traveling eight months from Afghanistan, he's now stranded here among the tents and squalor of what's known as the Jungle, a camp for thousands of people who believe they'll have a better life in the United Kingdom.
Khushal tells me he's different from everyone else in the camp. He's here because of his connection to the U.K. He says his work as an interpreter for the British army in Afghanistan has made him a Taliban target.
BLACK: Is it safe for you to be anywhere in Afghanistan?
KHUSHAL, FORMER AFGHAN INTERPRETER: No, in Afghanistan, impossible.
BLACK (voice-over): Khushal says he fled after the Taliban came looking for him and killed his older brother.
BLACK: How did they kill him?
KHUSHAL: By (INAUDIBLE), they shoot him in the chest.
BLACK (voice-over): These men became friends through war. George --
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BLACK (voice-over): -- Tyldesley is a former British army officer, who served two tours in Afghanistan. Khushal worked as his translator, joining foot patrols on the front line.
George says Khushal shared the risks and saved British lives.
GEORGE TYLDESLEY, FORMER BRITISH ARMY OFFICER: Probably the most trusted guy we had. He saw himself very much as one of the guys. He's very -- he loved the British army. He loved the guys in the British army.
BLACK (voice-over): In Afghanistan, Khushal says he applied officially for permission to move to the U.K. because of Taliban threats. He says he was told he'd have to wait indefinitely while his application was processed.
TYLDESLEY: It shames me, to some extent, I think, that we don't know how to look after the people that support us.
BLACK: The British government says it is grateful for the work of Afghan interpreters like Khushal and it has carried up his safety. It has people and processes on the ground assessing threats that are made against them. But so far, of the former Afghan interpreters that have claimed intimidation, reported that to those authorities, not one has been given permission to travel to the United Kingdom for safety. BLACK (voice-over): The British government says its second program for helping Afghan staff, those specifically still working with front line forces in December 2012, has resulted in hundreds of interpreters and their families moving to the U.K. And the government says it's not aware of any interpreters being killed for their work.
London lawyer Rosa Curly says she has evidence some have been murdered and she's leading a court challenge against the government's policies.
ROSA CURLY, ATTORNEY: The scheme available to former Afghan interpreters is much, much less favorable than what was available to the Iraqi interpreters.
BLACK (voice-over): The British government argues the security situation in both countries is different and says it's being selective about which Afghans should leave because it doesn't want to take too many of the brightest, causing a further brain drain in a country ravaged by decades of war.
CURLY: If those brains are going to be killed by the Taliban because of the results of the work they've done for the U.K. government, I find that argument extremely unconvincing.
BLACK (voice-over): For Khushal, this isn't a legal issue. He just doesn't understand why those he risked his life to help have left him behind -- Phil Black, CNN, Calais, Northern France.
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ALLEN: We have an adult migrant with his story; we have the boy and so many other stories like that every day, as this migrant crisis continues.
And later here, Australia has been heavily criticized for how it handles its own migrant crisis. We'll speak with an expert there on whether Europe can learn from its example.
HOWELL (voice-over): Plus, final confirmation: French investigators say that this plane part did indeed come from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. That story ahead.
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HOWELL: Welcome back. The wing flap recently found on Reunion Island, French authorities say they now believe with, quote, "certainty," that that flap is from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALLEN (voice-over): The flaperon is the first physical trace found of the Boeing 777 since it went missing in March last year with 239 people on board.
For the very latest, we're joined by CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson.
And certainly these investigators, Ivan, took their time before definitively coming to that conclusion.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, Natalie. It took more than a month for the French prosecutor's office in Paris to come out with this definitive statement, saying that this flaperon, this panel from a Boeing 777 was, in fact, from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. And part of what led them to this conclusion was investigating the flaperon with what they described as an endoscope; that's basically a kind of a tube with a camera on the end of it, a light. And they went inside the actual panel and there they found about three serial numbers.
Then these detectives had to go a further step. They traveled to Seville in Spain where the offices of a subcontractor to Boeing are operating and there they were able to confirm the serial numbers and come out with this definitive statement.
Now the French said this more than a month after this panel from the plane was found on the coast of Reunion Island, off the coast of Madagascar, the Malaysian government were much quicker to come out with an announcement, saying just about a week and a half after the panel was found that they believed that this did, in fact, belong to missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
But this is the first piece of debris from that missing plane that investigators say is, in fact, part of that plane, part of a search that has gone on now for some 18 months for the missing aircraft -- Natalie.
ALLEN: Yes. How are relatives of the passengers reacting to the news?
WATSON: Mixed emotions, because all of these people, they want to know what happened to their loved ones. That's something that has left them heartbroken and basically in purgatory now for some 18 months. So we've talked to about 5-6 of these relatives, Natalie. Some of them say, OK; it's nice to know that this one part is, in fact, from that plane. But I want to know what happened to the plane. That's the question that all of these people are asking for.
It's a question that the authorities are still trying to find the answer to; there is a search effort still underway in the Indian Ocean, being led by the Australians with ships scouring the bottom of the ocean, trying to find some trace of this aircraft.
Nobody seems to know how it is that this wing panel traveled thousands of miles west of there and ended up on Reunion Island -- Natalie and George.
ALLEN: One small piece of the plane but what a clue --
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ALLEN: -- it has given the world. Thank you, Ivan Watson, for us, thank you.
HOWELL: Now on to Venezuela, where jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez could learn his fate today. Lopez is accused of inciting violence during protests that shook the country last year. He faces up to 14 years in prison.
CNN's Shasta Darlington has the story.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite government crackdowns, his face appears on banners throughout the country. His imprisonment has prompted thousands to take to the streets.
Leopoldo Lopez, one of the best-known opposition activists in Venezuela, was jailed a year and a half ago for encouraging street protests. During those protests, 43 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes with police and government supporters.
To government opponents, inside and outside Venezuela, Lopez is a freedom fighter. His arrest was politically motivated. But supporters of President Nicolas Maduro see him as a right-wing throwback to a time when the poor were marginalized throughout the country.
From prison, Lopez announced a hunger strike back in May with a series of demands.
LEOPOLDO LOPEZ, JAILED OPPOSITION ACTIVIST (through translator): First, the liberation of political prisoners; second, to end the persecution, representation and censorship.
DARLINGTON (voice-over): He also called on President Maduro to stop stalling and set a day for parliamentary elections. A month later, the government announced the vote would be held on December 6th. In response, Lopez sent a letter to his wife, which she read aloud at a press conference.
LILIAN TINTORI, WIFE OF LEOPOLDO LOPEZ (through translator): Brothers and sisters, I ask you with my heart in my hand, together, let's end the hunger strike.
DARLINGTON (voice-over): Lopez, an American educated politician and former mayor of Caracas, has gained prominence from behind bars as a leading critic of both Maduro and his charismatic predecessor, Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013 with the economy in tatters and frustration growing over Maduro's hard-knuckle tactics. Lopez and other opposition leaders are gaining in popularity. But they'll have to overcome an elitist image and convert loyal Chavistas if they want to translate that into significant electoral victory -- Shasta Darlington, CNN, Rio de Janeiro.
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ALLEN: Well, as Europe debates how to handle the growing migrant crisis, Australia's prime minister says that the reason is simple: stop the boats. We're digging deeper into the country's tough and controversial policies as we keep on here on CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: And welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.
HOWELL: And I'm George Howell. A check of the headlines we're following this hour.
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HOWELL (voice-over): French investigators confirm a wing flap found on Reunion Island is in fact from a missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. This confirms what Malaysian officials said weeks ago. The flaperon is the first physical trace found of MH370 since it disappeared last March.
You'll remember 239 people were on board that flight.
ALLEN (voice-over): U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday he would not hesitate to run for president next year. But he's still deciding whether he and his family have the emotional energy they would need for a viable campaign. Biden's son, Beau, died in May after battling brain cancer.
HOWELL (voice-over): In the United States, a judge has jailed Kentucky clerk -- this woman -- who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Kim Davis must stay in jail for being in contempt of court until she decides to comply with the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling and issue gay marriage licenses.
ALLEN (voice-over): The grieving father of two young boys who drowned along with their mother as the family was trying to get to Greece plans to return home to Syria now to bury his family. Their coffins have now arrived in Istanbul, Turkey. Images of 2-year-old Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body on a Turkish beach sparked emotions and outrage worldwide.
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HOWELL: Aylan Kurdi's father, Abdullah, reportedly paid smugglers $2,000 to get his family to Greece. Now he will take his dead wife and sons back to Kobani, their hometown in Northern Syria, which has been engulfed by fighting.
Our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, takes a closer look at how Syria got to this state. But we do warn you: some of the images you'll see are disturbing.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Syria's trauma rarely is this visible. Aylan Kurdi, so innocent in death, you can almost feel his face in the sand.
Smugglers and unfulfilled hope put him there, but his family was at first fleeing another morbidly visible part of Syria's spiral into the void: Kobani.
To some here in sprawling camps, their onward trip to Greece or Canada would have been a lucky and expensive choice, to leave behind forever the abyss of their homeland.
When does it end?
Even overlooking Kobani, when the world was able to watch the warped brutality of ISIS launch car bombs on the borders of NATO, the coalition smart bombs came but they did not bring the war to a close.
In fact each time Syrian's crisis deepens, its horror bursts uninterrupted onto our screens.
And the world asks, when will it end?
The task seems all the more impossible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
WALSH (voice-over): ISIS fighting moderate rebels, fighting Al Qaeda, fighting the Kurds, all of whom have or want their own fiefdoms -- and that's just the North. The regime on the back foot, but still using barrel bombs against civilians with a brutality that fuels the unrest and kills more than anyone else.
A full two years have now passed since Barack Obama's only red line on Syria, the use of chemical weapons, was crossed. The suffocated (inaudible) broke through the fatigue over Syria. The use of sarin, given the White House's threat, seemingly Bashar al-Assad goading the world to stop him, apparently calling the right --
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WALSH (voice-over): -- bluff. He already tested Washington's will to intervene again after Iraq in the Middle East. Huge Scud surface-to- surface missiles against the rebel areas of Aleppo turned them into the surface of the moon.
Children, routinely hit by shelling that seemed almost designed to be random to terrify, hospitals in the crosshairs. Not enough to spur unified action back when Syria was a far, far less complex mess. And perhaps now even this image still not enough, when Syria has never seemed less fixable -- Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Beirut.
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HOWELL: Australian prime minister Tony Abbott is defending his country's tough stance on migrants; Australia has been criticized for turning back migrant boats and detaining asylum seekers and taking them to camps.
For more on this, I'm joined by David Manne. He is the executive director of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Center in Melbourne.
David, thank you so much for taking time with us.
I want to start by getting your reaction, sir, to some comments made by the prime minister just a short time ago.
He says, "A year or so back we announced that because of the crisis in Northern Iraq and Eastern Syria, we were going to take an extra 400 -- 4,000 migrants."
He goes on to claim, because the policies currently in place, we are in a position now to increase our refugee and humanitarian intake.
First, the question to you: do you believe that he will follow through with these words of action?
DAVID MANNE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, REFUGEE & IMMIGRATION LEGAL CENTRE, MELBOURNE: Well, look, the first thing to say about the increase and the intake of Syrian refugees is that that doesn't represent an overall increase in Australia's program.
And the fundamental fact is that Australia in -- on a global scale is a very wealthy country, which is incredibly well placed to take many more Syrian refugees. this is really a question of proper allocation of public resources in a very wealthy country to respond and to respond to the global crisis and ensure that Australia takes its fair share of refugees.
The other point to make here is that what Australia does in responding to this global crisis and taking more refugees should never be contingent upon how many people it can block from accessing asylum in Australia itself.
And this is a real problem with the policy we see in Australia.
HOWELL: The prime minister, you talked about that policy, he describes it as the most compassionate thing to do, in his terms, the most compassionate thing to do to stop the deaths at sea, to stop the human smuggling, is to just stop the boats.
But obviously, the policies have raised concerns. His methods have, in fact, caused a great deal of concern, allegedly paying some of the boat captains to turn the boats around, something the government has not denied and also, detaining people on these nearby islands.
MANNE: That's right. The price for these policies, which have significantly stemmed the flow of boats, has been to essentially inflict systematic harm on people fleeing from harm and to, in turn, violate Australia's fundamental obligations to protect refugees.
Ultimately, it's resulted in practices such as sending people away from Australia to places like Nauru and Papua New Guinea, to be indefinitely incarcerated in circumstances that in many cases replicate the same forms of inhumanity from which many people have actually fled.
The other point to make here is that these types of hardline deterrence policies are pushing people back who are seeking access to asylum in Australia, do nothing to address the real circumstances, the real desperation that forces people to flee.
All that those policies really end up doing is sweeping people from our doorstep in Australia to dangers and possible death elsewhere.
HOWELL: The Rohingya and other refugees and also migrants, it is a concern for many, looking at how Australia is handling the situation.
And the question now, is Europe looking at the same model?
David Manne, thank you so much for taking time with us.
MANNE: Thank you.
ALLEN: Donald Trump has pledged allegiance. The candidate promises to stick with Republicans no matter what, as an opponent questions his loyalty. We'll have that next.
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HOWELL: It is sort of an about face in some ways, but the Republican presidential front runner, Donald Trump, he is promising not to run as an independent candidate if he wins the party's nomination for the White House.
ALLEN: If he doesn't win the party's nomination, he now he says he won't run as an independent. The Republican National Committee is happy with that pledge. At least one candidate, though, running alongside Trump feels differently. Here's Dana Bash.
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DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After what sources say were several intense weeks of private consultation and cajoling... DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There is your pledge.
BASH: -- the Republican Party chair got Donald Trump to pledge allegiance to the GOP.
TRUMP: So I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands. And we will go out and we will fight hard and we will win.
BASH (voice-over): Sources say getting Trump to promise not to run as an independent has been a leading Republican goal since the bombastic billionaire refused to do so during the last debate.
BASH: What changed over the past several weeks, since you didn't want to raise your hand?
TRUMP: I think the thing that changed is the fact that I went to number one place very quickly after I signed and after I, in this building, notified everybody that I would be running for president.
So I think the biggest thing is that I went early to number one and the RNC has treated me with great respect, so that was very important.
BASH (voice-over): As Trump's popularity rose, so did Republican angst that, if he didn't get the nomination, he would run as an independent, siphoning votes from the GOP, making a Democratic White House win much easier.
RNC chair Reince Priebus slipped into the Trump Tower for a 15-minute meeting to seal the deal, then slipped out, no comment.
That the Republican chair flew to Trump's turf speaks volumes.
BASH: Why did you have Reince Priebus come here?
He didn't go to the other 15, 16 candidates, but he came here.
TRUMP: Well, the chairman asked if he could come up. You saw him. He was here a little while ago. And I was greatly --
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TRUMP: -- honored that he did come up, frankly.
BASH (voice-over): To be sure, the pledge has political benefits for Trump, too, who was getting hammered as a fake conservative.
Making this promise could help expand his support among the party faithful and avoid problems in South Carolina's primary, where the promise is required. But the pledge is not legally binding. Even sources close to Trump admit he doesn't have to stick to it.
JEB BUSH, FORMER GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: I mean, this is not a guy who is a conservative.
BASH (voice-over): Jeb Bush, who is now aggressively questioning Trump's conservative credentials, jabbed the GOP front-runner in a tweet, noting that he has voted Republican since 1972.
TRUMP: The economy does better under the Democrats...
BASH (voice-over): And Bush's super PAC is also getting in on the action, posting a video drawing similarities between Trump's views and those of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Those at the top have to pay their fair share.
TRUMP: Some people, they're not doing their fair share.
BASH: Even though this pledge is not legally binding, Trump said he sees no circumstances where he will tear up the pledge. But he, of all people, knows how unpredictable politics is. And we know how unpredictable Donald Trump is -- Dana Bash, CNN, New York.
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ALLEN: We know how unpredictable the weather is these days. And wildfires are now threatening the island of Sumatra --
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HOWELL: There are some serious repercussions to that region.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: There are, including endangering some flora and fauna as well as some endangered species in that region as well.
We're talking about the Eastern Central sections of Sumatra and this is an area that's heavily deforested.
Just a stat from 1982, 78 percent of the island was covered by forest. Now, in 2009, only 22 percent of the island still covered with forest life at the moment. So these fires endangering some of the species out there, including the Sumatran elephant and the Sumatran tiger.
This is an image of some of the firefighters trying to battle the blazes. The other concern here is the smoke caused by some of these smoldering fires across CT Sumatra, which you can see on this satellite image, with that hazy shade of white.
A lot of times this drifts with the prevailing winds across the Straits of Malacca and impacts Singapore and into Kuala Lumpur, often grounding flights. That's not the case at the moment.
But needless to say, you can imagine the air quality deteriorating with that smoke and haze settling into the region, Central Sumatra has a very hazardous air quality index as we speak. But it does leave scenes just like this in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.
This isn't the only part of the world dealing with fires and haze. As we move into the capital of Ukraine, Kiev has had spot fires in and around the city, leaving a thick haze across this region. You can imagine the air quality deteriorating in that region as well. This is all thanks to a storm system that was just moving through
recently. There was hot temperatures. In fact, they've only received about 15 percent to 20 percent of their average rainfall for the season so far.
It has cooled the temperatures down for London, Paris and Berlin. So that's something to look forward to. And you can see how that cooler weather will settle in a little bit further to the east as we go forward into the rest of the weekend.
But unfortunately they still have to contend with some of these spot fires around Kiev. Take a look at the video footage coming out of the capital of Ukraine, some drone footage; in fact, over 30 hectares of forest around the capital was burning.
Fortunately the weather is starting to playing along, so humidity levels increasing and the winds dying down. Again, the thick haze has settled over Kiev, but does look as if the fires will be under control going forward.
HOWELL: (INAUDIBLE), thank you very much.
VAN DAM: Thanks, guys.
HOWELL: Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM:
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HOWELL: I'd say it's a modern sound from North Korea possibly a calculated shift by the regime to embrace more things Western. Why it could have unintended consequences, as NEWSROOM continues.
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DON RIDDELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, I'm Don Riddell with your CNN WORLD SPORT headlines.
We're almost certainly going to have some new faces at the European football championships next summer. Let's start with Iceland. They beat the Netherlands 1-0 in qualifying in Amsterdam. A second half penalty from Gylfi Sigurdsson was the difference. And Iceland now are on the brink of qualifying for a major tournament for the first time.
Wales haven't been in a major tournament since 1958. That long drought looks like it will soon be over after their 1-0 win in Cyprus. It was Real Madrid's Gareth Bale. He came up with the goods late in the game.
It feels like there has only been one sports story in the U.S. today, Deflategate. A federal judge has nullified the NFL's four-game suspension against the New England Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady.
He is now cleared to play in their first regular season game next week. But Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL will appeal the Judge Richard Berman's (ph) decision to nullify that suspension. Brady can play during the appeal.
The (INAUDIBLE) Tinkoff-Saxo cycling team says they were very close to pulling out of the Vuelta a Espana after of their two riders were injured by television motorbikes and forced to pull out themselves. Peter Sagan and Sergio Paulinho were both sidelined after clashing with the bikes and following pressure from his team; emergency measures have been introduced to protect the cyclists for the rest of the tour. Those are the headlines. I'm Don Riddell.
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ALLEN: For the millions of "Star Wars" fans in the universe out there, this is for you. Force Friday is finally upon us. Stores around the world from Sydney to Rio de Janeiro have begun selling their trinkets from the film franchise. Of course, this is all part of the buildup toward the December release "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
So far, the action figures are causing the biggest buzz because they speak actual lines from the film. Fans are analyzing every word spoken, looking for clues about the top secret storyline of the movie.
HOWELL: I think I even saw storm troopers in the CNN Center today from Facebook. Kind of interesting.
ALLEN: They probably are --
HOWELL: Very strange, yes.
North Korea regularly fires off anti-Western rhetoric, but the country now seems to be adopting some surprisingly Western styles.
From the music North Koreans are now hearing to the designer clothes the first lady of North Korea wears, as Kyung Lah reports, it could be risky for the regime.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to North Korea's hottest pop band. Moranbong, a violin-wielding, high heel-wearing, Kim Jong-un loving girl group, formed, according to North Korea's propaganda, by the supreme leader himself.
At this concert, a long-range missile launches on the big screen behind them. Frenzied fans on their feet. The music crescendos, as the missile strikes a picture of the United States.
North Korea's age-old message delivered by women in a Communist version of a Chanel suit. It is a modern, powerful twist for the repressive regime's brainwashing of its people. While Kim Jong-un has reportedly executed members of his own family and inner circle, he's pitching himself as an exciting young leader, says North Korean studies professor Yoo Ho Yeol.
YOO HO YEOL, NORTH KOREA STUDIES, KOREA UNIVERSITY: He, Kim Jong-un, is a leader who are familiar with such kind of strange and new and otherwise cultural and image.
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LAH (voice-over): It is a calculated departure from the propaganda of his father's era. On North Korea's only airline, Air Koryo, flight attendants ditching the staid Soviet-era uniforms and replacing them with this. The leggy outfits gracing this month's cover of North Korea's magazine.
The new North Korea spotted on Kim Jong-un's very own wife, Ri Sol Ju. She is North Korea's Kate Middleton, spawning a Westernization of fashion in Pyongyang, down to the high heels.
But nothing happens by accident on the Hermit Kingdom's propaganda TV.
"No citizens on Earth are as happy as us," says North Korea's announcer, as Kim Jong-un takes a ride at this brand-new amusement park. Pictures on his private plane show him as a progressive leader, cementing his people's loyalty.
LAH: North Korea watchers say updating his propaganda from this to something more modern, more outside world, does have some political benefit. There is some risk to the regime.
LAH (voice-over): The ladies of Moranbong, perpetually in praise of Kim Jong-un, clearly got some ideas from their enemy on the other side of the DMZ.
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LAH (voice-over): South Korea's K-pop bands let in some new ideas.
YOO: They want to look beyond the screen maybe. It's a risk of the regime itself.
LAH (voice-over): A challenge not on a military front, but one of human curiosity -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Seoul.
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HOWELL: And fascinating report.
ALLEN: Here we go. Thanks for joining us on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.
HOWELL: I'm George Howell. I'll be back right after the break with another edition of CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.
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