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100,000 Evacuated as Rains Pound Japan; Apple Released iPhone 6s; Denmark To Allow Refugees to Travel Through; Startling Discovery Of New Possible Human Ancestor. Aired 8:00a-9:00a ET

Aired September 10, 2015 - 8:00   ET

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

[08:00:38] MANISHA TANK, HOST: I'm Manisha Tank in Hong Kong. A warm welcome to News Stream.

Unprecedented downpour, raging flood waters force people in Japan to seek refuge on their rooftops and the military to rescue them.

Plus, Germany says it has taken in nearly half a million refugees this year, but not all countries in Europe are so welcoming.

And a discovery that could transform our understanding of human evolution. Researchers find a new species in South Africa.

There's been recordbreaking rainfall in Eastern Japan. And it's been washing away homes and forcing some residents to seek refuge on their

rooftops.

The Japanese military has been saving those trapped by the rising flood water. It says so far it has rescued 101 people.

Local firefighters have rescued 20 others, but at least 170,000 people have been ordered out of their homes to find a safer place. And now

landslides are also a serious risk.;

Areas just north of Tokyo have been hit the hardest. Japanese report that Tochigi area received 50 centimeters of rain that's more than one-and-

a-half feet in just the past 24 hours alone.

Will Ripley has more now on Japan's flooding crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A wall of water in Eastern Japan leaving many stranded on rooftops, balconies, anywhere above water. Japan

activating its military, bringing in helicopters, rescue teams, pulling people to safety, searching flooded building for anyone trapped inside.

Japan prone to all kinds of natural disasters, but the rapidly rising Kinugawa River took many by surprise Thursday.

"This is the first time this has happened," says one long-time resident. Tens of thousands got evacuation orders, many had just minutes

carrying what belongings they could, unsure of what to do next.

"I haven't seen anything like this in decades," says this woman. She's one of thousands spending the night at evacuation centers, 100 of

them, providing food, water, and medicine.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warning the region could see more unprecedented heavy rain, meaning potentially more flooding at the already

waterlogged Fukushima nuclear plant. Heavy rains from Tropical storm Etau overwhelming the drainage systems, causing radioactive water to leak into

the ocean for several hours Wednesday. Power company Tepco says the situation is contained. Outside radiation levels normal for now.

The full scale of this disaster unknown. Also unknown, how many people may still be waiting for rescue, surrounding by flood waters, hoping

their house won't be the next one dragged away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TANK: Well, we've got Will standing by on the phone. He's in Tokyo right now, but he and the team will be heading soon to the flood zone.

Will, what is it you're expecting to find when you get there?

RIPLEY: Well, we'll be driving up this evening. It's about two hour trip. Of course, the weather conditions could make that a longer journey.

But we really won't get a sense of what's happening with flooding until the sun comes up tomorrow morning.

The hope will be that the flood waters have receded and that a lot of the areas that we saw inundated by that wall of water here today may

perhaps be passable on foot or by boat. But we just don't know, because there's more rain in the forecast. And there has been rain falling in

Japan in many areas for the better part of the last month almost every day.

So, it's very waterlogged. And any additional rain could be problematic of course.

TANK: We were hearing from the Red Cross just an hour or so ago that they are sending their teams to various evacuation centers, but it seems

like the military were quite well prepared, the government was quite well prepared, and people have managed to get to safety.

RIPLEY: Absolutely, Manisha. For one, they had some warning that this might be a problem. They knew that this tropical storm Etau was

approaching. So there were typhoon advisories in effect for areas that were in the strike zone, including the area that flooded here today.

In addition, we have had the heavy rain over the last month. And keep in mind, Japan is very used to responding to natural disasters because this

island nation is so prone to getting hit by various natural disasters, and so the self-defense force is highly trained to respond to things like

earthquake and volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and typhoons in addition, of course, to the flooding that we're seeing here now.

They have 10 boats and 23 vehicles that are out continuing their evening activities. The eight helicopters that were involved in the search

earlier are grounded for the night, but they'll be back up at first light to continue their aerial rescues, Manisha.

[08:05:36] TANK: So we were just looking at a map of Japan trying to get a sense of where this is. So this is just north of Tokyo. What more

can you tell us about the area that's been hit.

RIPLEY: So, this is not a densely populated of an area as other Japanese cities, certainly not as densely populated as the capital. If

this type of flooding were to break out here in Tokyo, you might have millions of people in the potential evacuation zones, so to speak.

However, given that this is a more rural area, specifically Iboraki (ph) and Sochibi (ph) Prefectures, that's why you're only seeing 170,000 total

evacuations over the last couple of days. And of course the hardest hit area Joso City where some 65,000 people are living.

So, this is a relatively small city by Japanese standards, but still as you see from the video there are many homes in this area, there are

potentially hundreds of thousands of people living along the Kinugawa river in this area who could be affected. We haven't seen the evacuation numbers

go up. But you know if the rainfall does intensify once again, there could be more people affected by this.

That's why you have 100 emergency shelters set up to prepare for potentially thousands of people who might need to take cover on relatively

short notice.

TANK: Yeah, and that's still not a small number, 170,000 people.

OK, Will, we'll let you and the team get underway. I know that you're going to be making your way there. Thank you very much for updating us,

though, before you left.

Now, turning to Europe's migrant crisis. Germany says it's registered nearly half a million refugees so far this year and still more are arriving

by the day. (inaudible) European Commissions call for mandatory refugee quotas for EU nations to share the burden of housing and caring for the

refugees.

Well, from Germany, many refugees are now traveling to Denmark and onto Sweden now that Denmark's national police chief said he would allow

migrants to travel freely through that country.

For more, let's check in with our senior international correspondent Atika Shubert. She's in Berlin and can talk to us a bit more about what's

happening when these refugees get there. And we're seeing various nations having a very different approach.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yeah, it's really a patchwork response from various EU nations. And Hungary, for

example, when they saw this -- these group of refugees streaming in, they tried to stop them from crossing and what that ended up was a huge

bottleneck.

Now in Denmark, they also tried to stop refugees from traveling through to get to Sweden, but quickly within a few hours after the motorway

was shut down, because refugees began to march across it, after the train service and ferry service was also shut down. The Danish police late on

Wednesday night took a decision not to detain any refugees or migrants coming across, but to simply allow them to travel freely through.

Now what's interesting here is that seems to be at odds with the right-wing Danish government that's just been elected. In fact, the Danish

government said that it was going to crack down on its borders and keep migrants from coming in. So there is a discussion happening at those

levels of government in Denmark right now trying to coordinate police and government policy. It'll be interesting to see what happens there,

Manisha.

TANK: It's so complicated, isn't it Atika, in terms of the legalities. You know, you had the Danish police saying that they were

legally able to do what they were doing, but we know there is that internal tussle going on in Denmark. But meanwhile, it's sorting refugees from

economic migrants, and then there are those that want to claim asylum amongst the refugees.

And a lot of discord about where that happens and how that happens.

SHUBERT: There is a lot of discord. And there are a lot of different proposals. The problem here is that the EU doesn't really have a joint

asylum policy, or it did, but it's one that didn't work.

The policy previously, was that refugees would have to apply for refugee status outside of the EU. If they chose to come to the EU, then

they would have to apply in the first EU country they stepped foot in.

But for most that was Greece, Italy, Hungary, countries that didn't have the means to take them in and they didn't want to stay there anyway.

So, in the face of this policy that isn't working, what we have is this wave of people coming through and trying to find their own way

crossing borders illegally, whether by train, by bus, by bicycle even, or just walking through and then trying to get to the countries where they

believe they will have their best chances at starting a new life.

For many, it's been Germany, but many also feel that Germany is filling up so they're going further afield like Sweden, Finland and Norway.

And unfortunately this is going to continue, because it's not stopping, until there is a more cohesive and unified policy from the EU.

[08:10:12] TANK: OK, Atika, thanks for that. Atika Shubert there in Berlin.

So, as we were touching on just now in recent days we've seen the Danish government take steps to try to stem the flow of migrants. They've

done this in physical ways. In fact, by running ads like this one in Lebanese newspapers. It warns would-be migrants of the country's new and

stringent restrictions for those seeking asylum in Denmark.

Social benefits for newly arrived refugees will be reduced by up to 50 percent. It goes on to say that migrants must meet certain requirements in

terms of speaking and understanding the Danish language in order to get permanent residence there.

And if your asylum request is denied you'll be swiftly returned home.

But many refugees say they have no desire to stay put in Denmark.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all happy, because we -- we leave this country. We don't want to stay here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TANK: Now, Hungary's right-wing government has been discouraging people from seeking refuge within its borders. Just last week at a meeting

alongside other EU member states the Hungarian prime minister said that Turkey is a safe country and that migrants should just stay there.

Well, these kinds of responses have elicited fierce criticism. Pakistani activists and Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai voiced her

outrage in an opinion piece for TIME Magazine. She called the world's response pitiful and went on to say I am distressed that most of our

leaders are failing to meet this moral challenge.

So, for days now, we've shown you how refugees from Syria are inundating Europe. But the influx is nothing new for Syria's neighbors.

Still ahead on this program, Jordan's Queen Rania talks to our Becky Anderson about how the refugee crisis has affected her country.

Also, Donald Trump reaches new heights in the U.S. presidential race. We'll show you a new poll suggesting he's going nowhere but up.

And a cave near Johannesburg yields a groundbreaking discovery. How experts think these fossils are from a human species that no one knew

about.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: We turn now to U.S. politics. And if you thought the races were already interesting, wait until you see some new polls that just came

out.

CNN's Athena Jones is with us now from Washington. So perhaps you can fill us in on these latest polls.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORESPONDENT: Hi, Manisha.

Well, we have a new poll out today, a CNN/ORC poll, that has some interesting numbers of the Republican side. Let's go ahead and put those

up on the screen. You can see that Donald Trump is in the lead and his lead has grown. He's up to 32 percent, up eight points since last month.

And he is the first Republican to break that 30 percent barrier.

This is significant, because a lot of analysts, a lot of people who have been watching closely, have said that Trump is going to fade. Well,

he's certainly not fading yet. His lead is growing. You see in second place there is another non-politician candidate, the former brain surgeon

Ben Carson. He's at 19 percent now. That's up 10 points since last month.

Coming up third is Jeb Bush who has actually lost ground since our most recent poll.

It just goes to show you that these outsider candidates are really appealing right now to Republican voters. And they are not so much into

the folks who have actually held elected office.

Now moving on to another poll on the Democratic side I want to show you, this is going to be a poll just of the state of Iowa. Our poll was

national, this is just Iowa. But you can see there this latest Quinnipiac poll shows that Senator Bernie Sanders is now edging out Hillary Clinton in

Iowa. He's just a point ahead, that is within the margin of error, but it's still significant.

We know that Hillary Clinton struggled in Iowa before back in 2007. She famously lost by several points to Barack Obama. In fact, she came in

third there. So the big question, of course for her in Iowa is, is this going to happen again with Sanders there surging.

So, very interesting numbers in a race that's already gotten a lot of attention, a lot more than you would expect at this time of year in a usual

election season.

So, we'll continue to watch -- Manisha.

[08:11:05] TANK: Yeah, Athena, very quickly, and this is very much the perspective of people around the world. You know, Donald Trump has

been in the headlines for saying -- for being very, very outspoken. So people around the world sort of wonder how that clearly has been going down

quite well with the Republican supporters in America.

JONES: It's a curious thing. A lot of the supporters of Donald Trump like the fact that he's so outspoken. They like the fact that he has this

tough talk on issues like immigration and China and being opposed to the Iran nuclear deal. Even when it comes to his attacks on women, he hasn't -

- it hasn't seemed to hurt him in the polls. In fact, he has gained ground among Republican women voters since our last poll. He's up 13 points.

So, just recently he said something about Carly Fiorina, one of his opponents, also of course a woman. We'll see if that hurts him. But so

far it seems like he's been pretty much Teflon coated -- Manisha.

TANK: Yeah. Well, you know they had so many polls ahead of the British election and no one got it right over there. So, who knows. Polls

are just a gauge. We'll see what happens in the end, huh.

Athena, thank you so much for that update from Washington.

JONES: Thanks.

TANK: Now, Singapore heads to the polls as well on Friday morning. The incumbent People's Action Party is widely expected to retain its grip

on power. The PAP is lead by Lee Ksien Loong, who is the son of the Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew who passed away in March.

But for the first time in Singapore's history, all 89 seats are being contested by the opposition.

The Vatican has just announced that Pope Francis will travel to Africa in November. He's due in the United States later this month and would

attract large crowds. In fact, according to the Philadelphia Archdiocese 10,000 tickets to see the pope deliver mass in Philadelphia later this

month were reserved in just 30 seconds, probably faster than a rock concert.

But Fortune magazine reports some are now being sold online for hundreds of dollars.

I wonder how Pope Francis feels about that?

You're watching News Stream. Still to come on this program, meet your newly found cousin. New fossils discovered in South Africa may shake our

knowledge of human evolution.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:01] TANK: Scientists say they've made an unprecedented discovery inside a cave in South Africa: they found fossils of a previously

unknown species believed to be the ancestors of humans. It's been named Homo Naledi and it's said to have stood about one-and-a-half meters tall

with feet almost identical to ours.

So, let's get more on this remarkable new find. And we can bring in David McKenzie who has actually spoken to that team. He's live for us from

Johannesburg.

Well, this was a very exciting story you got to cover, David. Tell us a bit more about it.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was exciting, and pretty extraordinary that it's just right under our noses

here near a major metropolitan area of Johannesburg, which already is known as the cradle of humankind with over the past few decades had given up some

incredible secrets of man's history, deep history, in fact. But inside that cave what they found was truly amazing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Descending into the Rising Star Cave, Professor Lee Berger puts a startling new discovery into perspective.

LEE BERGER, PROFESSOR: This is like opening up Tutankhamen's tomb.

MCKENZIE: Burger and his team of scientists say they've uncovered a new species of the human family tree. They call it Homo Naledi.

BERGER: We thought we have it figured out. We thought we knew how human origins worked.

MCKENZIE: He says what they found deep underground will shake our understanding of human evolution.

There are miles of tunnels underground here. And sometimes it's the tightest of fits. They had to recruit what they called underground

astronauts, to get in and make the discoveries.

K. LINDSAY HUNTER, SCIENTIST: He had posted that he was looking for skinny scientists.

MCKENZIE: Like many others, Lindsay Hunter answered Berger's Facebook ad.

The dangerous job mostly fell to scientists who were able to crawl through the narrow passages.

What they found was extraordinary.

A chamber of more than 1,500 fossilized bones coming up with the controversial conclusion that this is a burial ground that Homo Naledi

could have used fire to light the way.

BERGER: We've just encountered another species that perhaps thought about its own mortality and went to great risk and effort to dispose of its

dead in a deep, remote chamber right behind us.

MCKENZIE: It questions what makes us human.

BERGER: It absolutely questions what makes us human. And I don't think we know anymore.

MCKENZIE: It's extraordinarily human like.

BERGER: It is, in part. Superficially, short fingers, long thumb.

MCKENZIE: Homo Naledi is not human, but at times comes close.

The original fossils are a strange mosaic of ancient and surprisingly modern. A brain no bigger than an orange, but feet almost identical to

ours.

And every one of these tells a story

[08:25:01] BERGER: Every one of them is a mystery to science.

MCKENZIE: And leaves many unanswered questions. They haven't been able to date the fossils yet, so Homo Naledi may have lived tens of

thousands of years ago or even millions.

BERGER: This was right under our nose and we didn't see it. What else is out there.

MCKENZIE: Perhaps the very key to unlocking the story of humankind.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Well, Manisha, I want to give you a scale sense of this find, because some scientists in this field will literally spend their

entire careers maybe finding a fragment of fossil of a hominid and that will be a major career move. In this case, they found more than 1,500

fossil specimens and they say behind those cracks, some as thin as a post box, there are many, many more. So it could really get more questions and

answers for us on human evolution -- Manisha.

TANK: Yeah, I wondered about that actually, David. I wanted to ask you what happens now because this is an incredible discovery. Clearly the

team is very energized and excited about the find. Will they continue to excavate, or now is it a process of producing all the journals and

appealing to the scientific community to look at this?

MCKENZIE: I think it's a combination of both. And you're right, there will be some questions thrown at them from the scientific community.

One is the age of Homo Naledi, because it's unclear based on what they found how old it is. They haven't been able to use carbon dating, uranium

dating, or any other form of dating up until this point, because where it is in time scale on definitely human's family tree could point to how

significant of a find it is.

So, they will be put through scientific rigor, answer tough questions from the scientific community, but there are a huge amount of fossils still

down there, they say. And so there will be many more explorations.

And as you heard from Lee Berger there, they're going to completely rethink the way they look for these fossils, particularly here in Southern

Africa. And they've already put out the word to cavers to look for anything interesting, because I have to say how it all went down is that an

amateur caver and a geologist banged on Lee Berger's house in the middle of the night and they cracked open the beers and called National Geographic,

that's how it all went down.

So, really, in a case like this, it's often stumbling upon an amazing discovery rather than seeking it out.

TANK: Yeah, I love the idea. You didn't even know it was there and then you discovered something remarkable.

OK, David. Thank you so much for bringing this story to all of us. David McKenzie there live from Johannesburg.

A reminder, you're watching News Stream. Coming up on this program, we'll check the forecast for Japan where people are being pulled from

rooftops this hour as the country struggles to rescue residents from a devastating flood.

And later in the hour, a live report from the Jordanian capital where our team has just wrapped up an interview with Queen Rania. You'll hear

her take on Jordan's own refugee crisis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:32] TANK: I'm Manisha Tank in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.

Japan's military says it has saved 101 people stranded in severe flooding. Record breaking rainfall in eastern Japan has washed away

houses, forcing residents to seek refuge on their rooftops. At least 170,000 people have been ordered out of their homes to find a safer place.

From Germany, many refugees are now traveling to Denmark and onto Sweden now that Denmark's national police chief said he would allow

migrants to travel freely through that country. Earlier today, a train arrived at the Malmo rail station in southern Sweden. Meantime, the Danish

prime minister is holding special talks right now on the migrant situation.

And here you can see live pictures from Serbia's border with Hungary where construction on a razorwire fence continues.

Now, U.S. lawmakers could soon resume a debate on the Iran nuclear deal after postponing it on Wednesday to get more details from the White

House.

The aim is to finish a vote on it by Friday.

Meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a strong opponent of the Iran deal, meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Scientists say they have found a previously unknown species believed to be the ancestor of humans. The new fossils were discovered inside a

cave near Johannesburg. The species has been named Homo Naledi and appears to have exhibited human-like behavior such as burying its dead.

So, now let's return to our top story, the severe flooding in eastern Japan. Earlier we heard from Naoki Sato, he's the director of the Japanese

Red Cross headquarters, about he effort underway to aid those most affected by the flood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAOKI SATO, RED CROSS: So far we have more than 100 evacuation centers are opened, but we don't know the accurate number of evacuees at

this moment. (inaudible) contact in the local government and other organizations. They're making assessment what is necessary for the evaucees

and other local people.

Of course it depends on the situation of each evacuation center, but we assume people need a common assistance such as food, and blankets. It's

more than that, maybe medical psycho-social support. (inaudible) mobile medical teams who are ready to support for those people in the evacuation

centers after that right assessment in cooperation with the local authorities.

And the good news is that most of the public facilities, including hostels, are good operational with high alert.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TANK: Naoki Sato there from Red Cross headquarters.

So, let's check the forecast now. Chad Myers is at the World Weather Center. Chad, how is it looking?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's going to rain more. It's going to rain more on places that cannot absorb any more rainfall, period. We've

had a half a meter of rain in some spots over just the past three days.

A front kind of set up right over Tokyo, right over Sendai prefecture, and this is the area that had the tropical cyclone, the typical storm move

in to the area with he tropical rainfall. And north of Tokyo -- because really Tokyo was much closer to the center of the eye than where we're

talking about the flooding, which is about 100 kilometers north of Tokyo itself

But this is where the rain set up. North of the eye, north of the center of circulation. And it rained for days. It rained for hours and

hours on end, some spots picking up three, six, and 24 hour rainfall totals with spots picking up nearly 300 millimeters of rain just in 24 hours.

Some of the big numbers I'm seeing here, a 24 hour rainfall total here from (inaudible) 551 millimeters The old record was 300 millimeters. So

not only broke it, smashed that record. And even Tochigi (ph), 356 millimeters of rain in one day.

There's not a place in the world other than maybe the top of the mountains in Hawaii, that could take that kind of water that not wash it

down and do some type of damage.

Here we go. And more rainfall for Sendai province -- prefecture and all the way up even to the parts north of there, because the next storm

system is not quite done just yet.

There goes the next, which is Kelo (ph). It is going to miss Japan, thank goodness.

So, let's get to really happened here. This is the map of Japan. And if you don't understand in the spine of Japan there is a mountain range.

And the rain went up that spine.

Well, what happens if you put rain on top of a mountain? It is going to come downhill. It has to come downhill if it can't soak in.

So the rain coming up and moving up, up the mountain range and all of a sudden the range couldn't hold any more water. So, all of a sudden here

you have all this rainfall up the top of the hills and on top of Nikko (ph), north of Nikko (ph) and west of Nikko (ph) all of this water had to

run downhill. And this is the river that you're seeing here on most of those pictures where the water is so significantly deep as we have to make

it all the way back to the ocean.

So, here you go on top of the mountains, we're seeing the rain. And then all of a sudden it has to come all the way down and push eventually

off the bottom of my map.

So, more flooding to come because even though it may not have rained in all of the spots, there's still more rain, more water coming downhill.

Back to you.

TANK: OK. Thanks for that, Chad. And thanks for the visuals really helping us understand how this actually happened. At least people knew to

some extent that it might be coming.

Still to come here on News Stream, as Europe works to protest hundreds of thousands of refugees, Jordan's Queen Rania is voicing her opinion on

the issue. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: So there's been a lot of talk recently about the Chinese economy and actually where it's going. And if you were worried about a

hard landing in China, the Chinese premier says you shouldn't be.

At the World Economic Forum, Li Keqiang says the Chinese economy is doing fine despite some headwinds. Those remarks came as Beijing tries to

assure investors. China's stock market has plunged 40 percent in the last three months and there were signs that growth is slowing.

Now, Mr. Li insists that things are under control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LI KEQIANG, CHINESE PREMIER (through translator): Despite some moderation in speed, performance on the Chinese economy is stable and

moving in a positive direction.

Having said that, we also face some difficulties. But on the hole, we have more opportunities than challenges. It is the creativity and passion

of the public that gives us confidence in overcoming the difficulties we face. We have the capability to achieve all the major targets of economic

development for this year and lay a solid foundation for our economic growth for the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TANK: Chinese premier Li Keqiang there.

When Beijing devalued the yuan last month, some think the move could spark a global race to devalue currencies, but Mr. Li insists that China

will never start a currency war.

Now Apple unveiled the iPhone 6s at its much touted event on Wednesday. And according to Apple's chief executive Tim Cook, China's

appetite for the iPhone is growing. He says the Chinese market for iPhones grew 75 percent year on year.

As expected, the new phone will feature force touch, already used in Apple Watches. And it has a better camera as well.

Apple also turned its focus onto business users with its new iPad Pro. The bigger sized tablet can be attached to a special keyboard, a special

keyboard cover. It's sort of similar to Microsoft's Surface tablet.

Ironically, though, Microsoft was at the launch to demonstrate their Office app for the iPad Pro.

But apparently investors are not impressed. Shares fell nearly 2 percent after the event.

So, now let's turn to the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe. But we can't forget Syria's neighbors. And they've been dealing with this

crisis for much longer.

For its part, Jordan's king says that country has taken in 1.4 million people who fled the Syrian civil war.

Well, CNN's Becky Anderson is on the line now with us from Amman. And she recently sat down with Jordan's Queen Rania.

Becky, "m sure it was a very interesting conversation. And one would love to know her views on the refugee crisis, given that the country has

absorbed far more than half a million refugees.

[08:40:26] BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, the refugee crisis and its root cause is nothing new for this region

of the Middle East.

It may seem to have crept up on Europe, but the reality on the ground here in this small country of Jordan is this: 20 percent of the population,

20 percent is now a Syrian refugee. That is one-and-a-half million men , woman and kids, Manisha. That is the equivalent of accommodating nearly 75

million refugees in Europe or in the United States.

Now you rightly pointed out, I've been speaking with Queen Rania whose frustration was very clear. By no means did she belittle the numbers in

Europe. She absolutely pointed out that these refugees are literally running for their lives. They are running away from a well-founded fear of

persecution. And she pointed out we must remember that.

But the numbers really here in the Middle East speak for themselves. And she had this appeal to the international community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUEEN RANIA, JORDAN: I think that, you know, as an international community, you know, this is no longer just a Middle East problem, nor is

it exclusively a European dilemma, this is for the whole international community to deal with. And we need to come together for collective

action. We need to come up with a comprehensive and cohesive policy in order to deal with this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: And that is for the leaders of the world, global leaders of this world, Manisha.

Meantime, short-term the impact on this small country of 8 million people is horrendous on infrastructure, on education, on health. We've

spent some time last night with a Syrian refugee. She is a mother of seven. She did have an eighth child who was killed in Homs. Her husband

is imprisoned in Syria by the regime. She is a refugee here. She relies on the World Food Program assistance, which has been cut significantly,

recently. And she just wants to go home. She doesn't want to be here. But this is the only place that she can be, because home isn't safe enough

for her or her kids. It is a shocking situation, and one as Queen Rania rightly pointed out, needs to be dealt with and dealt with now.

TANK: Yeah, and a very important reminder, of course, that this has been going on for years now, even if Europe is just waking up to it.

OK, Becky, thank you so much for that.

You can watch the rest of Becky's exclusive interview with Queen Rania on a special edition of Connect the World live from Amman.

That's it from me and News Stream. World Sport is next.

END