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Iranian President Addresses UNGA; Cuban President Addresses UNGA; Trump Releases Tax Plan; Typhoon Dujuan Hits Taiwan, Mainland China; Afghanistan Taliban Take Key Kunduz Province; Catching Up with Iraqi Family Rescued from Mt. Sinjar; Liquid Water Found on Mars. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired September 29, 2015 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. This is "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles.
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead this hour, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin try to look cordial for the cameras but there was no hiding the stiff tension between the two leaders Monday at the United Nations.
VAUSE: Donald Trump promises to slash taxes for rich and for poor, but will that slow his shrinking lead in the polls?
SESAY: And Comedian, Trevor Noah attempts the previously unthinkable, replacing Jon Stewart as host of "The Daily Show."
VAUSE: Hello, everybody. We'd like to welcome our viewers, in the United States and all around the world. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. "Newsroom L.A." starts right now.
U.S. President Barack Obama is making an impassioned plea for an end to the war in Syria. He spoke Monday to the United Nations General Assembly, making clear he's now open to negotiations with anyone to stop the fighting.
VAUSE: But he is still insisting Syria's dictator, Bashar Al Assad, must go and that has him at odds with Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict. But we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Well, Presidents Obama and Putin met for about 90 minutes to discuss Syria and Ukraine. Mr. Putin says only the Syrian people should decide President Bashar al Assad's fate, not the U.S. or France.
VAUSE: On Ukraine, President Obama reiterated U.S. support for the country's sovereignty and called on Russia to implement the Minsk Peace Accord over the next few months.
SESAY: Well, let's get more on the UNGA now. Nic Robertson joins us in just a moment from London.
VAUSE: But first we will start with Matthew Chance who is standing by live this hour in Moscow. I guess, Matthew, away from that very public slanging match at the U.N. between Putin and Obama, there now seems to be at least the
prospect that the two leaders could work together for a political solution in Syria?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I think if you cut through the frostiness of the relationship between President Obama and President Putin of Russia, clearly there is an inevitability about the fact that they will have to work with each other in Syria. Already Russia has boosted its military footprint, as it's being called, in Syria. It's got its most advanced warplanes there, some very high- tech military equipment that it's using to back up not just its own diplomacy but also the government of Bashar al-Assad, I mean, and that presents the United States with a fete acompli. Russia essentially has boots on the ground and its intention is clearly to back up President Assad of Syria. Take a listen to what Vladimir Putin had to say at his speech at the U.N. General Assembly yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN (translator): We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces, who are
valiantly fighting terrorism face to face. We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad's own forces and Kurds militia are truly fighting the Islamic state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHANCE: So President Putin casting this very much as a fight against international terrorism, calling on other countries, like the United States, to join with Russia in fighting that threat. But, of course, the suspicion is that this is more about bolstering Russia's international clout and keeping its toe hold, its foothold in the Middle East. Jon.
VAUSE: Matthew Chance live this hour in Moscow.
SESAY: Well, let's bring in Nic Robertson now. Nic, as we hear Matthew talking about Syria taking center stage at the U.N. and the fight against
terrorism, President Obama will be chairing a terror summit, similarly to last year, at the U.N. He'll be doing that on Tuesday. Many asking why he's doing that again, given the fact that last year's summit didn't achieve very much.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the aim was to sort of get everyone at the U.N. to agree to do what they could to stop foreign nationals traveling from their countries to get to Syria to join ISIS; to get to Iraq to join ISIS. There was an agreement and there was sort of political capital on the part of the United States invested to do that. The reality on the ground has turned out to be something different. People continue to flow toward ISIS, whether it's in Libya, where they're gaining a stronger foothold over the Kashmir, or Syria and Iraq where they continue to be able to take territory and grow territory despite the air strikes that are targeting some of their training camps, targeting some of their other facilities.
[01:05:00]
The flow of people is still happening. Some are disenfranchised. Some are leaving. They are giving a negative message about their impressions of ISIS in totality; but, you know, what President Obama is going to need to try to achieve now is something in addition to what he's been able to do over the past year. and when you listen to President Putin and what the Iranian Leader Rouhani had to say, they're very firmly behind President Bashar Al Assad. This puts them in a very different position to the United States, to the western coalition that's tackling ISIS inside Syria.
So the idea of getting stability inside Syria at the moment, which is a big draw for ISIS, that doesn't seem to be something that while going into the UNGA there might have been hope that there was some common ground, I think we've heard from the leaders now and we can see that common ground doesn't exist. So a conference now on terrorism comes into this on a weak footing.
Isha?
SESAY: Indeed. Very interesting indeed. Nic Robertson joining us from London. Matthew Chance in Moscow. Our thanks to you both.
VAUSE: Plenty of other world leaders were speaking at the U.N. General Assembly on Monday; that's what they do there. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani criticized Saudi Arabia's handling of the recent hajj stampede near Mecca, which left hundreds of people dead.
SESAY: Cuban President Raul Castro lauded the warming relations between his country and the United States but also demanded a lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the U.S.
VAUSE: Zimbabwe's 91-year-old leader lashed out at countries which are pushing for civil rights for gay people. President Robert Mugabe said gay rights are against his country's values.
SESAY: Now, U.S. Republican candidate, Donald Trump, has revealed a tax plan that promises economic growth as well as tax cuts for many Americans.
VAUSE: The billionaire businessman says this is his thing, it's in his wheelhouse, it's what it does, it's his expertise, but does all this measure up against his rivals' plans or math? Sara Murray reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTAL CANDIDATE: These numbers are really spectacular.
SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Tonight, Donald Trump delivering more policy proposals. unveiling a plan that slashes taxes for the wealthy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But this still looks like a pretty big tax cut, even for those at the top of the spectrum --
TRUMP: This is actually a tax reduction. I actu - big tax reduction, including for the upper income.
MURRAY (voiceover): under Trump's plan individuals earning less than $25,000 and married couples earning less than $50,000 would pay nothing. But Trump also gives the wealthiest Americans like himself a huge tax break, cutting the rate from nearly 40-percent to just 25- percent. The billionaire real estate mogul refusing to share his current tax rate but saying he strives to keep his tab down.
TRUMP: I fight like hell to pay as little as possible. Can I say that? I'm not a politician. I fight like hell always because it's an expense.
MURRAY (voiceover): Trump's plan most closely resembles one of his fiercest GOP rivals, Jeb Bush. Bush also calls for sweeping cuts and a top rate of 28-percent. Marco Rubio's plan brings it to 35-percent and offers broader tax credits for the nation's poorest Americans.
TRUMP: If I win, if I become president, we will be able to cut so much money.
MURRAY (voiceover): Others say this is Trump's attempt at striking a populist tone. As critics slam his interview with CBS, saying Trump is advocating for universal health care even as he calls for repealing Obamacare.
TRUMP: I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of, much better than they're taken care of now.
MURRAY (voiceover): As Trump shows how America will look under his leadership; Ben Carson is climbing in the polls, essentially tied with Trump in the latest NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" survey. Carson's surge comes even as he continues to face questions about his comments last week that a
Muslim shouldn't be president.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you are saying there's something specific about being a Muslim that you have to reject Islam in order to be a president?
DR. BEN CARSON, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you have to -- you have to reject the tenets of Islam. Yes. You have to.
MURRAY (voiceover): Sara Murray, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein is joining us now for more on Donald Trump's tax plan. So great to have you here.
SESAY: Welcome.
RON BROWNSTEIN, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's nice to be here.
VAUSE: I guess the one thing that we learned today, Donald Trump really is a conventional candidate. This is a conventional tax plan. He's pretty much ripped off all the details from Jeb Bush, but made a little classier, a little bigger, a little better.
BROWNSTEIN: Well, it is less distinctive and different than people expected. In many ways Donald Trump has been developing a blue-collar populism that does challenge traditional tenets of Republican beliefs, the last several years particularly on free trade.
[01:10:00]
BROWNSTEIN: But here he reverted to orthodoxy; lowest top marginal tax rate since 1931, down to 25-percent; end the estate-tax which are imposed on people, you know, after they pass; reduce corporate taxes; reduce taxes for business owners; and in many ways, as you say, kind of a conventional supply side argument. He talks about reducing deductions to make it revenue neutral. The initial analyses are there are not enough deductions to take back to offset the very large reduction in rates for people --
SESAY: So to that point, to jump in on what John just said, how does this grow the economy to levels that haven't been seen in years, which is what he's lauding with the plan?
BROWNSTEIN: Right, well, look, the reality is if you look over the last several decades in the U.S. it is hard to draw a straight line between tax policy and job growth. Under Ronald Reagan they cut taxes and we had, what, about 14, 15 million jobs. Under Bill Clinton we raised taxes in '93 and then added even more jobs. And, then, under George W. Bush, they cut taxes again and we had the weakest job growth of any two-term president I believe in the 20th century, only 1 million net. Obama raised taxes, jobs grew again. There is not a clear correlation in our experience between the level of marginal tax rates and the experience of the economy on jobs. So it's hard to argue that this alone would radically change the trajectory we're seeing.
VAUSE: I want to look at the reaction we have here because people have been hitting Twitter, and we had Grover Norquist we know, who is the conservative who wants everyone to basically sign this commitment not to raise taxes. He wrote "Donald Trump's tax return plan released Monday 8:00 a.m. perfectly consistent with the Taxpayer Protection Pledge." So the Republicans, the conservatives like it. We also have the Democratic response. This
came from a former adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama. This is Austin Goolsbee. "ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. reading Trump tax plan. ha, ha, ha, carry on. reading hee, hee, hee." This does get to the point that Trump doing, in doing this, releasing this type of tax plan, in some ways, is committing himself more to Republican Party policy and orthodoxy than that phony pledge which he signed a couple months ago.
BROWNSTEIN: Well, no, I think that's right. This is a much more conventional Republican tax plan than we expected. You know, in many ways, as I said, Donald Trump has articulated a 21st Century version of the blue- collar populism we heard from Ross Perot, from Pat Buchan, from Rick Santorum. But in this case, you know, after talking about, for example, hedge fund managers are getting a break, this is pretty good for hedge fund managers overall.
SESAY: And yet it gets lost in the rhetoric. He makes it seem as if this is all about the poor and the suffering.
VAUSE: Broad brush strokes. No one focuses on the details, and he's good at talking up something, which is what he's doing right now.
SESAY: Well, in the race for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says he can change the culture of Washington. The California Republican announced on Monday that he wants to be his party's chief spokesman and leader. He said he can do what outgoing Speaker, John Boehner couldn't do, control the conservatives.
VAUSE: On Friday Mr. Boehner made the surprise announcement that he is resigning and he has come under fire within the Republican Party over his criticisms of a plan to defund Planned Parenthood.
Other stories we're looking at this hour, stocks are trading down across Asia. That comes after a big sell-off on Wall Street. the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down more than 300 points on Monday, that was just a little less than two-percent. So let's look at the numbers right now. We see the Nikkei down almost 4-percent in Tokyo. Shanghai Composite down almost 2-percent. In Hong Kong stocks are - opened way down, more than 3-percent, and have stayed down, and in Seoul down by about a quarter of 1-percent, pretty much where they were last hour, but of course this will have an impact, we believe, on the European stock trading day, which is set to open in just a few hours from now.
SESAY: Well, just ahead on "Newsroom L.A." the deadly typhoon Dujuan makes landfall in China after causing major damage in Taiwan. The details are coming up.
VAUSE: And, stepping into some pretty big shoes, Trevor Noah makes his debut on "The Daily Show."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:16:]
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good day to you. Pedram Javaheri and this is CNN weather watch. We'll break down what's happening across the Americas for you. And slice the U.S. in half right now. The western side of the U.S. staying on the dry side over the next couple of days. The eastern side of the U.S. getting some impressive rainfall from what is a tropical disturbance trying to develop across the Gulf Coast of the U.S. that moisture all spreads off to the East and about a 20-percent probability the National Hurricane Center gives this to becoming a named storm, but at this point really not a concern because we know the rainfall going to be there the next couple days.
Upwards of say 50 to 100 millimeters in the southern U.S. states as you work your way to the north. The moisture gets entrained in an incoming cold front. We could pick up upwards of 150 millimeters around, say, portions of eastern Massachusetts, New York state as well and southern New York as well.
An area we know moderate to severe drought's in place. So good news around the northeastern U.S., with the temperatures cooling off a little bit across the region.
24 in Atlanta, 18 with showers around Chicago, San Francisco and the morning clouds, afternoon sunshine should be into the upper teens.
While around the Caribbean we go, Belize City will be in the low 30s. Havana, Cuba, some thunderstorms returning there, about 31 degrees,
Down toward South America we go, where Lima gets in about the upper 20s there and Salvador at 29 degrees with partly cloudy skies and Port Omant making it to 13. Single digits still around Rio Gallegos.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SESAY: Well, the countdown has been on since Jon Stewart announced he'd be leaving "The Daily Show" back in August; and now Trevor Noah has taken over as host.
VAUSE: The popular satirical news show returned with the 31-year-old comedian at the helm. Our Brian Stelter watched the premier and says Noah was quick to establish his own style.
BRIAN STETLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Isha. Hey, John. I guess the big question is, was Trevor Noah funny? And the short answer is yes, but he's a very different host from Jon Stewart. "The Daily Show" is an American TV institution, valued all around the world for its satirical look at the news and Trevor Noah's version is going to be quite different. Now, he was funny in his premiere but he also took a moment to be serious and thanked Jon Stewart for the opportunity. Here's one of the best moments from the premiere.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TREVOR NOAH, COMEDIAN, "THE DAILY SHOW": The truth is now I'm in the chair and I can only assume that this is as strange for you as it is for me. Jon Stewart was more than just a late-night host. He was often our voice, our refuge, and in many ways our political dad. And it's weird because dad has left. And now it feels like the family has a new stepdad; and he's black.
[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STETLER: It's going to take weeks, months, and maybe even years to fully see and judge Trevor Noah's version of the show; but think about all the differences that he represents. Jon Stewart is in his 50s. He was shepherding this show for over a decade; actually more than 15 years. Trevor Noah, on the other hand, is 31 years old. He brings multiculturalism to the show. He's an outsider, a native of South Africa, who brings a Millennial perspective to "The Daily Show," and it won't be as much of a media criticism show as it was in recent years. You know, Jon Stewart loved to make fun of CNN and Fox News. When I asked Trevor if he's going to be focusing quite as much on cable news as punch lines, he said he'll probably look just as much at Buzzfeed or Vox or social networking sites for fodder for comedy.
[01:20:00]
He's not a political junkie, per se, but he says he's an information junkie, eager to make barbs or make jokes about entertainment and sports, as well as campaign news.
He'll have more musical performances on the show. He has Ryan Adams later this week. And, he'll also try to incorporate more of the correspondents that we didn't see as often when Jon Stewart was leading the show in recent years.
But he will continue to focus on politics. He has Chris Christie as his first political guest on Wednesday, the New Jersey governor and Republican candidate. So it will be a chance to see what Trevor Noah's like sitting down with a big high-profile politician.
Like I said, going to take weeks, months, even years to fully evaluate Trevor Noah. He's a very different host from Jon Stewart. But then again, Stewart was truly irreplaceable. So it makes sense for Noah to be trying to create his own brand new version of "The Daily Show."
John and Isha, back to you.
SESAY: Our thanks to Brian Stelter for that. Well, Trevor Noah grew up as a racially mixed child in Apartheid-era South Africa. Dave McKenzie joins us now from Johannesburg with more on that part of Trevor Noah's story. Dave, I know you've been digging into Trevor's rise to the top and managed to gain some unique perspective.
DAVE MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Isha, and it has been a meteoric rise. As Brian was saying, certainly hard shoes to fill in Jon Stewart; but with Trevor Noah, he has really anchored himself in the South African market and gone from there. But he came from very humble beginnings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCKENZIE: Perhaps the relaunch of the year, into the hot seat of "The Daily Show," South African comedian, Trevor Noah replacing Jon Stewart after 16 seasons. The 31-year-old is almost unknown in America. You can see here he looks like a naughty boy.
NOMALIZA NOAH, Grandmother, Trevor Noah: He is naughty.
MCKENZIE: But not so here in Soweto, where his grandmother still lives in the house where she raised Noah as a child.
NOAH: He wants where he is, there must be laughter, no tears.
MCKENZIE: He was always her favorite. Was he always making jokes?
NOAH: Always laughing. Always laughing.
MCKENZIE: But she says it was tough for him sleeping on the couch with his cousins. She had to hide him from the authorities.
TREVOR NOAH: I was born a crime.
MCKENZIE: Born to a white father and black mother, illegal during apartheid, Noah likes to say he was born a crime. Some people are asking how a young comedian from here in Soweto could appeal to an American market. Well, Trevor Noah succeeded here in South Africa, a deeply divided nation.
DONOVAN GOFAITH, COMEDIAN: Trevor was -- is possibly still for me the hardest-working comedian, person I know.
(Unidentified Male): We must ask these questions ...
MCKENZIE: Friends and competitors alike say Noah is a role model here. they say he grew from a vanilla comedian to an edgy crossover hit.
GOFAITH: People trust him now and they're willing to hear what he has to say. That's the hardest thing about being a comic is gaining the trust immediately. When you walk on stage, people must listen to you.
NOAH: Welcome to "The Daily Show."
MCKENZIE: Something Noah will have to do all over again if he wants to conquer the biggest of stages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKENZIE: Well of course, the show aired very early here in the morning in South Africa, and South Africans are going in their droves to social media, YouTube, and other sites, probably how Trevor Noah himself will ship that show, and trying to assess it themselves. Generally the assessment right now is he didn't spectacularly fail on his first night and for that it's a win here in South Africa. Isha?
SESAY: David McKenzie, we appreciate it. Interesting to see how he settles into the show. David joining us there from Johannesburg. Thank you; lots of people sharing their views. What do you think?
VAUSE: A lot of good reaction on twitter.
SESAY: Mm-hmm. VAUSE: A lot of people think that he did a very smooth transition, but you know, Jon Stewart, I mean, this is a man who "The New York Times" just a couple years ago, said was the most trusted man in the United States. This is an impossible job to fill. In some ways they would have almost been better off ending the show with Stewart and starting a new show with -
SESAY: I just don't -
VAUSE: --Trevor Noah because --
SESAY: I don't agree.
VAUSE: -- this is such a suicide mission to take this job on. And really -- I wish him success. He's obviously very good at what he does. He's smart. He's clever, you know, and he's very good with his timing. He delivers a great joke. I just don't think it's going to work.
SESAY: He is so radically different from Stewart --
VAUSE: Which is the problem.
SESAY: -- it's the only way they could have made the break from the Stewart era, to bring someone so different --
VAUSE: That's the point.
SESAY: -- to bring such a unique perspective.
VAUSE: They've made it so different that the show is no longer the show everybody loves.
SESAY: That presupposes they're looking to keep the very same audience and not necessarily grow that --
VAUSE: Which then gets to my point, end the show. Begin a new one. Start it up with Trevor, or whoever, and call it something completely different. I think "The Daily Show" is such an institution.
[01:25:00]
"The Daily Show," for liberals and progressives in this country is what Fox News, in many ways, is to Republicans, and I think that if it's not going to be the same, with the biting sarcasm and the satire and the takedown of Fox News and the Republicans and CNN at times --
SESAY: But you don't know that he can't do that. But he would be coming at it from a different position, perspective.
>> we'll see.
>> Ye of little faith, John Vause. Very, very little faith. We wish him the best of luck. I think he's going to be a success. I really, really do. I know you don't. >> No, I think -- I'm not saying that. Take a short break. Next on CNN we'll talk to a storm chaser in Taiwan. What's happening right now after Typhoon Dujuan ripped across the island.
>>> Plus, new hope for the possibility of life on Mars. We'll have details on NASA's latest discovery of flowing water on the red planet.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody; thanks for staying with us. You're watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour, the U.S. and Russia have a serious disagreement over Syria's president. Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin met Monday at the United Nations. Mr. Obama calls Bashar al Assad a tyrant who is fanning the flames of war. Mr. Putin says he backs the Syrian leader in the fight against rebel forces.
VAUSE: Donald Trump has finally shared his long-awaited tax plan. He promises drastic cuts in income taxes for the poor and the wealthy if he is elected U.S. president.
[01:30:00] Mr. Trump plans to pay for the cuts by eliminating corporate loopholes and deductions, which are used by the very rich.
SESAY: Officials say at least two people are dead and more than 300 injured after Typhoon Dujuan hit the island nation of Taiwan on Monday. Dujuan dumped over half a meter or nearly two feet of rain in parts of the country. More than half a million people are without power, and the heavy rain is expected to cause flooding and landslides. Just last hour, we learned the storm has weakened some and made landfall on mainland China.
VAUSE: James Reynolds is a storm chaser. He was there when the deadly typhoon hit. He joins us on the line from northeastern Taiwan.
So, James, how powerful was this storm as it passed over Taiwan?
JAMES REYNOLDS, STORM CHASER (voice-over): This was an incredibly powerful typhoon. Taiwan is used to typhoons. It gets hit by them every year. But this was a lot stronger than the usual typhoon they get. And you can see by the number of casualties which are being reported. The majority of these were from the strong winds. I could see myself yesterday, lots of flying debris, making it an extremely hazardous situation. Thankfully, now, I think the worst has moved on and conditions have improved.
VAUSE: Things seem to be getting better in Taiwan. China is a different story. But the storm is weakening a little. As you look around you how extensive is the damage there? And I guess given how powerful the storm was is there a sense that maybe this could have been a whole lot worse?
REYNOLDS: Well, the basic infrastructure of Taiwan is incredibly solid. They're built for not only typhoons but earthquakes as well. The main structures, main houses and government buildings are all basically fine. The damage is superficial. However, I did see traffic lights and trees ripped out of the ground and smaller huts and shacks which were basically ripped apart by the wind of the typhoon.
VAUSE: James Reynolds on the line with the very latest on the storm and the damage which it did to Taiwan.
James, thank you.
SESAY: Let's bring in Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri, who's tracking the typhoon and the incredible rain it has brought.
Pedram, break down the forecast for us.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, guys, just to give you an idea of what this storm system did from sunset on Monday night to sunrise on Tuesday morning across Taiwan it brought more rainfall down than you would see in London in an entire year in that period. In fact, in Los Angeles it would take two years. They average about 12.5 inches. They picked up 28 inches across portions of Taiwan. Work your way through observations. Rainfall totals in excess of 600 millimeters. Of course, we know there's drought in place. It would take five years of recent rainfall to accumulate what curd around northern Taiwan in the last 24 hours. Taiwan kind of a fact with this is home to some of the highest density of tall mountains for anywhere in the world. As the mountains come up we're talking about some mountains that are about 300 mountains that are rising to 3,000 meters, about 10,000 feet in height. This would be a graveyard for any sort of tropical feature. This storm comes in as a category 4 as it did at landfall. Exited the central mountain range of Taiwan as a category 1 as the storm literally shreds it apart and as you force these clouds into the mountains you're forcing the air to rise, it cools, condenses and then you squeeze out the historic amount of rainfall that we saw across parts of town. But as you dissect the storm system I want to bring the quadrants into the picture because oftentimes in the northern hemisphere with tropical features you look at the right front quadrant, that's because the storm as it rotates counterclockwise that area, not only the speed of the storm sin creases but also you have the wind speed itself pick nag corner to be where the strongest winds are found. There's an island just east of Taiwan called Yonaguni Island. It had a wind gust of 292 kilometers per hour. That is 181 miles per hour. That is the strongest wind gust they've seen in Japan since 1966. And that happened at the summit of Mt. Fuji. In fact, that 181 miles per hour equivalent to the speed of a commercial airliner taking off at your airport. So you take a look at all this. This is what we're seeing with the storm system. At this hour category 1 equivalent storm system as it pushes in, made landfall around 11:00 local time around eastern portions of China. Here's the forecast. 140 kilometer per-hour winds. Again, sitting roughly at about 80 or so miles per hour. The concern is the population right over this region. Guangzhou about eight million people. Fuzhou seven million people. The storm system will bring additional rainfall on the order of possibly ten inches. Now we're talking about 200 to 300 millimeters over this region as it moves ashore. The wind speeds will die down significantly. Continuous mountainous terrain it interacts with over the next 12 to 24 hours. Of course they're used to it. But the population density being so high when you bring down this much rainfall around Putiam, which is just south of Fuzhou, that would be upwards of 300 millimeters. We're talking six inches, or plus six inches. So certainly going to be a problem across that region of China. And notice the population density still quite high. 400 to 800 people just per square kilometer as it moves over the interior portion of China inside the next 24 or so hours. The concern remains very high for additional flooding, additional landslides, because of the mountainous terrain ahead of it, and this is a story we'll follow for a couple more days -- guys?
[01:35:15] VAUSE: OK, Pedram. Thank you for the update.
We have some new images to share with everybody out there. The storm Dujuan has made landfall, passing over the coast into China. This is some of the damage we're seeing in the town of Guangzhou. These images coming to us from state-run television there, CCTV. Very strong winds whipping up the waves. We do know the power of the storm much less than what it was when it hit Taiwan just a little earlier. Killing at least two people and caused some damage there, superficial damage, according to James Reynolds, our storm chaser. Of course, this is the situation just a few hours ago in Guangzhou City in China.
SESAY: You see the water levels there. You definitely see from these pictures the ferocity of the winds. But as John made the point, it has lessened significantly since it made the switch to China. But it is a story we'll continue to follow for you here on CNN NEWSROOM.
VAUSE: In the meantime, we'll move on to Yemen, where Houthi- controlled news agency says Saudi air strikes killed at least 131 people at a wedding. Many people were hurt.
SESAY: The air strikes were in the southwestern part of the country. Saudi Arabia says it doesn't have any operations in the area.
VAUSE: Taliban fighters in Afghanistan may have captured the key city of Kunduz after a deadly battle on Monday. The leader of the militant group issued a statement congratulating fighters and telling them to keep the residents safe.
SESAY: Afghan officials say they plan to retake Kunduz soon as possible.
Michael Holmes has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Afghan security forces stretched to the limit as the Taliban seize control of most, if not all of Kunduz, storming the town from three sides at dawn.
(EXPLOSION)
HOLMES: NATO-trained Afghan police and army say they're doing what they can to thwart the attack. Both sides, they say, taking casualties. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translation): All of our Afghan forces are
fighting the enemies, and until the last drop of our blood we will defend this territory and be confident that they are not able to do anything.
HOLMES: The insurgents claim to have taken over several government buildings, a hospital, and a jail, where they freed hundreds of prisoners, though some government officials deny this.
It's one of the most serious losses in the nearly 14-year war with the Taliban.
(EXPLOSION)
HOLMES: The losses in Kunduz reflecting poorly on the NATO-trained government forces and embarrassing the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani.
This cell phone video posted to social media shows one Taliban fighter explaining what he wants.
UNIDENTIFIED TALIBAN FIGHTER (through translation): God willing, this is our hope, to build a religious school, to build a bridge, a road, a Sharia-based government. This is why we came out, and this is what we fought for. So that Sharia Law is enforced here.
HOLMES: The city of Kunduz, in Kunduz Province, is located in northern Afghanistan and is the country's fifth-largest city. The Taliban have been taking advantage of the withdrawal of the majority of NATO forces. They have surrounded the city for months and attacked it back in April. One local official says the Taliban now controls 70 percent of the province.
Michael Holmes, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: A short break here on CNN NEWSROOM. When we come back, a reunion with the teenage girl who made a dramatic escape from ISIS aboard a rescue helicopter. Stay with us and find out how she and her family are doing now.
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[01:41:54] SESAY: Hello, everyone. A teenage girl became the face of forlorn hope a little more than a year ago when she was rescued by the Iraqi military from Mt. Sinjar.
VAUSE: The girl and her family were fleeing ISIS. Now they're living in a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, caught up with them and has their story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a rescue from hell. In the mad dash to climb aboard a flight to safety, families scrambled to stay together. These desperate people spent nine days trapped on a barren mountain under siege from ISIS militants who chased them from their homes.
(GUNFIRE)
WATSON: Amid the chaos and gunfire, terror frozen on the face of a girl in purple, 14-year-old Aziza Hamed.
More than a year later, we found Aziza and her family in this refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.
(on camera): I'm looking forward to this. We're going to meet some old friends that we encountered in very dramatic circumstances more than a year ago. And they're right up here.
Dunia, how are you?
WATSON (voice-over): Aziza and her older 18-year-old sister, Dunia, are here along with their elder brother, Thabet, his wife and three children. Their situation now much better than the unfinished construction site where they lived for the first seven months after ISIS made them flee their homes.
The girls tell me they go to school here and they say the camp has started to feel like home.
(on camera): Aziza, you've gotten a little taller than Dunia since I saw you last.
WATSON (voice-over): But it does not take long for terrible memories to resurface.
(on camera): What's making you sad right now?
"When I see you," Aziza says, "I remember what happened."
AZIZA HAMED, RESCUED FROM ISIS (through translation): We saw ISIS with our own eyes, how they were capturing people. If we drove down the wrong road that day, we would have ended up in ISIS hands, but we took a different road and made it to the mountain.
WATSON (on camera): In the year since their narrow escape, their father's health has deteriorated, and he can no longer walk. No one knows what happened to two elder brothers, who were captured by ISIS last year and haven't been heard from since. And another brother, 23- year-old Karem, smuggled himself to Europe on the migrant trail taken by so many other people fleeing the Middle East.
(on camera): Hey, Karem.
KAREM HAMED, RESCUED FROM ISIS: Hello.
WATSON: Hey, how are you? Where are you?
HAMED: Deutscheland. WATSON: Germany?
HAMED: Yeah.
WATSON (voice-over): I ask Karem if he misses Iraq.
HAMED (through translation): No, that's gone. Iraq is gone for me. I lost it. I want to build a new future for myself. There's no future in Iraq.
[01:45:] WATSON (voice-over): That hopelessness, shared by so many people we talked to in refugee camps in northern Iraq, where people like Aziza and Dunia's older brother, Thabet, still struggle to deal with the trauma they endured.
"I just want to start a new life," he says, "And I want my family to stay safe and to stay together."
One of the few times 15-year-old Aziza really smiles is when I ask her what she'd like to do to the men from ISIS who attacked her family.
"I would stomp on their heads and kill them," she says.
This girl may have escaped to live another day, but her innocence has been forever lost.
Ivan Watson, CNN, Dahak, Iraqi Kurdistan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: A story of suffering endured by so many.
VAUSE: Hundreds of thousands of families in a very similar situation to them. They've lost everything, had to leave their homes, and living in refugee camps and being through trauma like they have.
SESAY: Yes.
Now, NASA confirms there is flowing water on Mars. Up next, what the discovery means for the possibility of life on the red planet.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good day. I'm CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam with a quick look at your "Weather Watch."
(WEATHER REPORT)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[01:50:14] CARTOON CHARACTER: Excellent shot, Smithers. I'll be squeezing my bobo in no time.
CARTOON CHARACTER: Howdy, gents. What can I diddley do you for? Eh?
CARTOON CHARACTER: Remember, Smithers, in and out in 18 seconds.
CARTOON CHARACTER: Hmm.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
VAUSE: OK. It has been one of TV's biggest secrets for years. "The Simpsons" character, Wylon Smithers, is gay. And the show's executive producer says Smithers will officially come out this season.
SESAY: Well, the show has dropped endless hints about Smithers' sexuality, but his boss, Mr. Burns, still doesn't know. He will find out, though, over the two episodes this season. "The Simpsons" has been on the air for 27 years.
VAUSE: I could tell when he booked Malibu Stacy. You remember that episode? He ran into Lisa while buying the new edition of Malibu Stacy.
(LAUGHTER)
SESAY: You're an avid watcher of "The Simpsons"?
VAUSE: I love "The Simpsons."
SESAY: I learn so much about you.
VAUSE: Absolutely.
OK, a Martian mystery has been solved. NASA scientists confirm water exists on the planet and it apparently still flows from time to time. Researchers analyzed dark streaks on Mars's surface which grew during the summer and vanished during the winter.
SESAY: Scientists are working to find out where the water comes from. The discovery shows the conditions on Mars are potentially, potentially more livable than once thought. Then, astronauts can one day go there to look for signs of life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN GREENFIELD, FORMER NASA ENGINEER: We are now at a point technologically where in over 50 years of successful space flight that we have the capability to go there, ask this question of is there life on Mars, and answer it. This is, to me, the most exciting thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And last hour, we spoke with Richard Zurich about the findings. He's the project scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: We know there's water there, frozen in the polar caps?
RICHARD ZURICH, PROJECT SCIENTIST FOR MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER: Yes.
VAUSE: So why is it so important that this stuff is in a liquid form? What's the big deal here?
ZURICH: Liquid, because that's more mobile. And if we're thinking about where life might want to get a foothold, liquid water is a good place for it. Also, a liquid is what changes things on the surface of the planet. In fact, that's how we found this bit, is by look at these streaks as it darkens the surface, and then fades away only to reappear the next year. So liquid is what we've been looking for. Yes, we knew there was ice. We knew there was vapor in the atmosphere. But now there's water that's a liquid, and moving on the surface. Not very much maybe but it's there. Now, to stay liquid on Mars with its very cold temperatures and such, you need to put something in the water. It can't just be pure water. So we found the salts. And that's what the news was today, is not only did we suspect that there was water there but we've seen the result, the kind of salt that could keep it liquid. And also that salt was hydrated. It had absorbed the water that was there. And that's an indication again that the water is, indeed, there.
SESAY: Let me ask you the question everyone has and the question that rose to the top with this conclusion being announced. What does it mean for the question of life beyond earth? And what kind of life might exist on Mars in these conditions?
ZURICH: That is a very good question.
(LAUGHTER)
So what this really does is it tells us there are some places on Mars to go look for evidence of current life on the planet. Now, salty water isn't necessarily good for life, microbes, bugs and such, but if life developed on Mars, it probably did so in its early history, billions of years ago, when we know the planet had much more water flowing across its surface. We see the big channels that it carved at that time. Now, where did that water go? Some has been lost to space. We actually have a spacecraft that's looking at that process right now around Mars. And some of it was frozen into the surface. And maybe conditions today are still at the edge of being able to make that water liquid and to be able to flow on the planet.
VAUSE: What happens next? Where do you take this to the next step?
ZURICH: First of all, we'd like to confirm that what we see and interpret is really what it is. We've been surprised before by Mars where we look at something, it looks like something where we go, ah, I know what that is, by analogy with what we see on earth. Yet, it can turn out to be something different. It's a different planet. So the first thing is to try to confirm that there is a flow of water there. One way to do that is to look at how it changes during the day. Right now, our orbiter happens to come over 3:00 every day, mid-afternoon. That's when the humidity is low on Mars. What we'd like to do is see it in the early morning when it could actually be wet enough. We might see the water itself.
So look forward to the next orbiter. We're also looking for where else on the planet we might see these things, just how extensive might this liquid water be. And part of that is you have to look at very high resolution to even see these features. That required our latest orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at Mars. That's only covered 3 percent of the planet at that resolution. There's a lot of territory out here to look for.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:55:28] VAUSE: OK. Richard Zurich there, speaking to us a little earlier.
And of course, a lot of excitement about all of this. And it comes pretty much at a perfect time or maybe not the perfect time because it may have blown the entire premise of the sci-fi film "The Martian" completely I guess out of the water.
SESAY: You can say it.
VAUSE: I did that last hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT DAMON, ACTOR: I've got to make water and grow food on a planet where nothing grows.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The movie opens in the next few days around the world and in the United States on Friday. It's about an astronaut, Matt Damon, who gets stranded on Mars, has to find a way to survive because there's no water there.
SESAY: The filmmakers worked closely with NASA on the movie. Director Ridley Scott told "The New York Times" he knew about NASA's discovery but not in time to change the film.
D'oh!
VAUSE: You have been watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
SESAY: And I'm Isha Sesay.
Stay with us. The news continues with Rosemary Church and Errol Barnett right after this.
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