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Pope Francis Celebrates Mass for the Martyrs of Uganda; Three Killed in Planned Parenthood Shooting; Colorado Gunman's Motive Unknown; Turkey Warns Russia Not to "Play with Fire"; France Honors Victims Two Weeks On; Weather Highlights. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired November 28, 2015 - 03:00   ET

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


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): We begin in Uganda, where hundreds of thousands come together to greet Pope Francis and celebrate mass.

In the United States, three people are killed in another mass shooting. We'll bring you the latest on this developing story.

And, "Don't play with fire," the Turkish president gives Russia a warning as Moscow makes another series of moves ratcheting up tensions between the two countries.

And hello, everyone. This is CNN NEWSROOM, these stories are all ahead here, live from Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.

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ALLEN: Happening right now, Pope Francis is in the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda, celebrating mass at a shrine dedicated to Ugandan martyrs.

ALLEN (voice-over): This is live video from the event. The mass is a highlight of the pope's trip to the country and hundreds of thousands of people are attending. Earlier, the pope praised Uganda for its generosity in welcoming refugees. That was on his Twitter account.

The U.N. says Uganda is hosting refugees from neighboring countries. His message comes as the refugee crisis, as you know, unfolds around the world.

CNN's Vatican correspondent, Delia Gallagher, is on the line with us about more on the pope's activities and what his message might be before this throng of people there in Uganda -- Delia.

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hello to you, Natalie.

Yes, the pope is wrapping up this very important mass at a shrine which is a place of pilgrimage for many Ugandans, who come here on foot from many miles and from other countries every year to pay homage to these martyrs who are saints, they're Christians who were killed, 45 of them were killed about 100 years ago and they are, as the pope said, national heroes here in Uganda.

So the pope, too, has come here to say mass and pay homage to them. I should mention one thing of a political nature which happened yesterday and that is that Pope Francis met with the president of South Sudan. And for people who follow that, that is a significant meeting because, of course, he is in Uganda. And normally when he is in another country he doesn't meet with other foreign leaders in the country.

But this president was invited and is apparently friends with the Ugandan president Museveni and of course, South Sudan being a country that is newly formed, since 2011, so the Vatican spokesman told us that they had a brief encounter. And the pope said, although I don't normally meet with other foreign leaders in a different foreign country, I am happy to do so as a sign of peace and reconciliation for that country.

So today the pope will be finishing up his mass here. It's really focus of this trip. And one of the reasons that he came to Uganda, to honor the Christian martyrs for Uganda (INAUDIBLE) 80 percent Christian (INAUDIBLE) Protestant and Catholic. And also to encourage, as he did last night, all of the priests and nuns who are working in this country, which suffers from a lack of infrastructure and a lack of money for education and health care.

So a lot of the Catholic Charities and the Catholic Churches, which Catholic all around the world donate money to, go to some of the schools and health care facilities here.

And I have to tell you, Natalie, I have really never seen crowds like we saw coming in, lining the street from the airport. The airport is about 40 kilometers away from Kampala, the capital city. And they were absolutely lining -- I mean, 10 deep, I couldn't even tell you the numbers for the whole 40 kilometers, waiting for the pope to come down.

It was dark, there was no lights. But they were there waiting for him. And equally today, of just -- in the mass about a couple hundred thousand inside the sanctuary and then all those who couldn't get inside, lining the dirt roads outside to get a glimpse of the pope -- Natalie.

ALLEN: Delia, we have just a few second left.

How would you sum up the main messages that he has tried to share about the importance, what he thinks about Africa and how it is emerging?

GALLAGHER: Well, it's interesting because his message really in Kenya and here, certainly to the political leaders has been very strong and it has been against corruption. It's a big problem; I heard it from the Kenyans when we were there yesterday and the day before, that they -- that their wealth is concentrated in a few hands and that the money doesn't filter down. And the pope went very strong on that and he did it again yesterday

here in Uganda, saying that a government needs to be transparent and there needs to be a just distribution of goods.

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GALLAGHER: So in terms of a political message, that's it.

ALLEN: All right. He has one more country to visit after Uganda and we'll continue to follow the pope, Delia Gallagher will for us, thank you, Delia.

We turn now to the United States. Police in Colorado say a 59-year- old man is the gunman in the deadly mass shooting inside a women's clinic. The suspect surrendered Friday evening after a nearly 6-hour standoff inside a Planned Parenthood.

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ALLEN (voice-over): That's him with handcuffs in a white T-shirt. Police say three people died, including an officer.

LT. CATHERINE BUCKLEY, COLORADO SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Earlier there was no communication with the suspect. We did get officers inside of the building at the Planned Parenthood and the officers were able to shout to the suspect and make communication with him. And at that point, they were able to get him to surrender and he was taken into custody.

ALLEN (voice-over): That was six hours after it began. But this officer was killed, 44-year-old Garrett Swasey, a 6-year veteran of the University of Colorado police force, who joined in the shooting to try to help out. We don't yet know who the other victims are.

The mayor of Colorado Springs thanked the police for their work on Friday.

MAYOR, COLORADO SPRINGS: And it was the most incredible work on behalf of officers trying to minimize the number of fatalities and get this guy in custody. And I was just incredibly impressed.

This -- while it's a terrible, terrible tragedy, the way the police handled this, I think, minimized or kept it from being even a worse tragedy.

ALLEN (voice-over): Nine other people were wounded, five of them, police officers. They are reported to be in good condition and will recover.

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ALLEN: Police haven't released a motive for the shooting. CNN's Justice correspondent Pamela Brown has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a very chaotic scene in Colorado Springs on Friday; for at least five hours, there was a gunman who barricaded himself inside the Planned Parenthood building there.

There were several people inside; hostages were being evacuated and SWAT teams communicated. And they said that they were looking at video feeds from security cameras inside that building to track the gunman's movements, able to see where he was going.

He was walking through the hallways. At times, the video feeds show that he was very close to victims who were hiding in safe rooms and elsewhere. And they describe this gunman in this scanner traffic that we listened to as a white male; he was wearing a long coat, that he was bulky and had a beard.

The safe room, there were some victims, some people that were hiding in there. Apparently they were given some indication that there was a crisis happening. So they went into the safe room to hide from that gunman.

Apparently you have to have a certain key card in order to be able to get into that room.

We have learned tragically that at least three people were killed, an officer as well as two civilians, several injured.

The question now is motive. You can't ignore the fact that this took place at a facility that does provide abortion services but it's unclear at this stage whether that had anything to do with the gunman going into that building and opening fire.

We learned from officers that he did surrender peacefully after several hours. The question now is whether he will talk to investigators -- Pamela Brown, CNN, Atlanta.

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ALLEN: One woman was working at a chiropractic office near the clinic when all of this began. She told CNN what she saw.

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TESSA SMART, CHIROPRACTIC ASSISTANT: I was sitting at my front desk in the chiropractor's office. It is right by the front door, of course. I was watching a patient that was standing by our front door. Our whole front entrance is all glass.

And (INAUDIBLE) something and then I heard what I thought for a split second was maybe gunfire but then I quickly went into denial, especially since I was watching that patient and she never backed up.

But then as I continued to hear it, her face started to get a little concerned, a little confused. Then I got up just to check things out. And before I even made it to the door, I heard a very distinct bullet go right by the door and hit something. And that's when I ran back to my desk and grabbed a bunch of keys and

fumbled at the door, trying to find one to lock.

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ALLEN: Joining me now is Steve Moore, he's a former supervisory special agent for the FBI, he is live via Skype from Los Angeles.

Steve, as we listen to --

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ALLEN: -- these people in other buildings that heard these gunshots and we talk about the people who were shot, so many of them.

The man killed an officer and two citizens. He shot many others, five other officers. From what you are hearing about this, what do you think was the situation that so many police officers were shot?

I can remember; we have too many mass shootings in this country but I can't remember that many police officers being shot.

STEVE MOORE, FORMER SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: Well, I think what you had is a call go out, that shots were fired and I know police officers. My brother-in-law and my cousin are both police officers; these people are the ones who go towards the gunfire, not away from the gunfire.

And the shooter had, I'm guessing, an AK-47 because these bullets were going through several buildings at a time. He could reach out and hit them through their squad car doors when they were hundreds of yards away.

So their response -- they had no idea how close they could get before they were a target. And their first warning was bullets coming through the car. That's what being a policeman is like.

ALLEN: Yes. You never know the power of the shooters and many times they're have more power than the police officers, sad to say.

MOORE: Most of the time.

ALLEN: Yes. Three people died, 12 altogether shot. I know you don't want to second-guess how the police worked this out because they did get him to surrender.

But why do you think they didn't move in on him sooner?

MOORE: You know, I was looking at that and I'd been listening to the reports as they come in and continually come in.

From what I am guessing, I believe that you will find that the shooter got in, the casualties occurred right at the initial part of his attack and then he found himself locked out of everywhere. My guess is that -- there's always what we call an emergency assault team ready to go in as soon as a hostage or another person is victimized. The reason they didn't go in, I'm going to guess, is that they knew

that he had no visual access to any more victims, that he could not see them or aim at them. And I think they made the decision that sending officers in just gave him more potential victims when he had none, just walking around their building he was locked out of, essentially.

ALLEN: OK, That makes sense, especially taking so many hits there at the beginning, as well, knowing how dangerous he was.

You have been involved with Planned Parenthood. We don't know this man's motive, if it was against particularly Planned Parenthood. But you've been involved before when these types of facilities are threatened.

Tell us about that.

MOORE: I have been involved in bombings, mainly. And these types of attacks are usually done by people much like ISIS, claiming that they are doing it for Islam, these are radicals who claim they're doing it for their religion when their religion really forbids this kind of thing.

So this is a domestic terrorist incident, in my opinion. I think it will be proven to be such. And you're going to find that the person who did it was mentally unbalanced. I would guess that he has a rap sheet of minor offenses. I wouldn't be surprised if they are deviant in nature and he just kind of needed to express violence in some way or another.

ALLEN: Steve Moore, we appreciate your analysis. Thanks again for joining us.

MOORE: Thank you.

ALLEN: Turkey delivers a stern warning to Russia and Moscow is making threats of its own after its fighter jet was shot down. More about that as we push on here.

And France honors the victims of the Paris terror attacks. We'll hear from the president of the republic, who had strong words for the attackers.

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RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST: I'm Richard Quest and these are the top business headlines.

Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States, has delivered scenes we've become accustomed to in recent years of shoppers in a frenzy.

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QUEST (voice-over): Now it may not deliver the number of retailers that people have been hoping for, in seeing major shoppers including Target and Amazon offering price discounts all through the month.

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QUEST: The head of operations at Nestle's told CNN child labor and human rights abuses have no place in its supply chain. An investigation ordered by Nestle found abusive employment practices among its seafood supplies in Thailand.

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MAGDI BATATO, HEAD OF OPERATIONS, NESTLE: It's an emotional issue, you know, because I'm a father of two that were not long ago children before they moved into young adulthood. So, yes, we take these things very seriously.

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QUEST: Stock markets in China tumbled as the government cracked down on the country's largest brokers widened. The Shanghai Composite fell 5.5 percent.

Volkswagen is giving production line workers in Germany nearly a month off over Christmas and the New Year. The company's image has suffered a series of blows after its diesel cars were caught cheating emission tests. Analysts say VW's long closure could be a recognition of lower sales.

Those are the headlines. I'm Richard Quest in Abu Dhabi.

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ALLEN: Russia has started to make good on its economic punishment threats to Turkey.

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ALLEN (voice-over): The two countries are at odds after the Turkish military shot down this Russian warplane you're looking at. Moscow announced it will suspend its visa-free travel system with Turkey on the 1st of January. And a group of Turkish businessmen were also apparently detained in Russia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted angrily.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRESIDENT OF TURKEY (through translator): The whole world admits Turkey is right in this incident. So it is playing with fire to use this incident as an excuse to make unacceptable accusations against us and go as far as mistreating our citizens, who have gone to Russia to participate in a trade fair.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ALLEN: President Erdogan has requested a meeting with Russian

President Putin at next week's global climate summit in Paris. But there's no sign it will take place.

Former CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty is now a researcher with the International Center for Defense and Security and brings us more on the threats and the stern words.

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JILL DOUGHERTY, INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY: Russia is planning even more retaliation against the Turkish government for the shootdown of its plane.

Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev has ordered the government to put together a list of possible actions and now they have that list complete and they will formally present it Saturday.

The government already had cut back on imports of food from Turkey. It had ended at least temporarily visa-free travel by Turks to Russia. And also it urged Russian tourists not to travel to Turkey.

Now the defense ministry meanwhile has released its version of how that shootdown of the Russian plane happened. They call it an ambush by the Turks and they also say that they informed the United States as the head of the U.S.-led coalition that their forces were going to be operating in a specific area.

Now, meanwhile, the Turks are looking to try to calm this situation; President Erdogan wants to meet with President Putin next week, the 30th of November, in Paris at a climate conference. But the Kremlin is saying no meeting has been discussed and no meeting is planned.

Finally, an interesting comment by a senior aide to President Putin, Yuri Kovalchuk (ph). He gave the highlights of the meeting that President Putin had with French President Hollande.

And he said that there is a recognition that eventually there will have to be a ground operation in order to squeeze the terrorists but he said there is also an understanding that only the Syrians can do that.

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ALLEN: We are following the latest now from the terror investigations in Europe.

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ALLEN (voice-over): In the Belgian capital, security was tight at a popular Christmas market Friday. The attraction in Brussels opened as the city's threat level was lowered to its second highest ranking. Separately, Belgian officials arrested and charged a person with terrorist attacks but they haven't released any other details from those charges.

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ALLEN: And France is honoring the 130 victims of the Paris terror attacks. French President Francois Hollande led a solemn ceremony on Friday. CNN's Hala Gorani reports from Paris.

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HALA GORANI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: On a freezing morning, France paused to remember its victims again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking French).

GORANI (voice-over): Two weeks after the atrocity in the great courtyard of Les Invalides...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking French).

GORANI (voice-over): -- the names of the victims were read aloud, one by one, along with their ages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking French).

GORANI (voice-over): A somber President Hollande sat beside survivors and loved ones of those who were killed.

FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): Friday, the 13th of November, this day that we will never forget, France was --

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HOLLANDE (through translator): -- struck shamefully, a horde of killers murdered 130 of our people and wounded hundreds of others. Today, the entire nation is making an effort to live and it's crying for the victims.

GORANI (voice-over): The victims, said the president, were of all ages but mostly under 35. They are being called the Bataclan generation. Hollande also remembered the foreigners who died in the attacks from 17 different countries.

HOLLANDE (through translator): Parents who will never see their children again, children who will grow up without their parents, couples broken apart by the loss of a loved one, 17 countries share their grief with us today, these women, these men, on that Friday the 13th of November, were in Paris.

GORANI (voice-over): Poetry aside, the president had harsh words for the terrorists.

HOLLANDE (through translator): I promise you all solemnly that France will carry everything out to destroy the army of fanatics who committed these crimes because, despite the drama, despite the spilled blood, France keeps her principles of hope, tolerance, intact. GORANI (voice-over): France and its values might be intact. But for the relatives, the grief is still raw -- Hala Gorani, CNN, Paris.

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ALLEN: Now France is preparing to host representatives from nearly 200 countries for a major event, the COP 21 conference. We'll tell you why this climate summit is considered critical to all of our futures.

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ALLEN: The COP 21 conference begins on Monday in France as world leaders try to reach an agreement on how to slow climate change. COP stands for Conference of Parties. The annual meeting is initiated by the United Nations. This year's meeting is the 21st. Representatives from almost 200 countries and the European Union will attend.

The goal?

To reach the first legally binding universal agreement on climate change specifically to prevent the global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. That's since the Industrial Revolution a couple of centuries ago. So we will be watching that and we will be covering it here at CNN.

The bush fire threat in Australia is beginning to ease but the flames have left a --

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ALLEN: -- trail of devastation and two people died. Dozens of homes have been destroyed or damaged.

Karen Maginnis following this for us from the International Weather Center -- Karen.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is just the beginning of fire season across Australia. The temperatures start to soar. We see less and less precipitation and we get wind events.

That's the situation that we saw around Adelaide. But there is a weather system that's expected to move through.

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MAGINNIS (voice-over): But take a look at the damage and the situation that they had to deal with as these blazes just popped up across the vicinity of Adelaide, consuming about 90 homes and businesses and severely damaging dozens of others.

Now there were between 200 and 300 firefighters that battled these blazes over the last several days. It consumed 83,000 hectares since Wednesday. The fire is 100 percent contained. But firefighters say there are numerous hot spots that they have to stay on top of.

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MAGINNIS: And those temperatures are gone to be knocked down the next several days because a frontal system is expected to move in. Here it is, moving across the bike (ph) as we go into the next couple of days. Most of that moisture lies right along the eastern coast of Australia.

And across the South Central United States, specifically look at this in Amarillo, Texas, ice. We will see ice accumulations across this region over the next 12 to 24 hours. Already it has been responsible for five fatalities.

Icy roads have been the main danger across this region. But also power outages have been reported. Looks like the icy conditions will affect an additional 7 million people with very heavy rainfall that has turned deadly in some sections of Northeastern Texas -- Natalie.

ALLEN: All right. Can't mess around with ice. All right. Thanks for the warning, Karen.

We'll be right back with our top stories. Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM.