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Road Map for Syria; Inside the U.N. Resolution on Syria; Obama Promises Active Final Presidential Year; U.S. Officials Fear Foreign Spies Are behind Hack; Beijing on Red Alert Due to Pollution; U.S. School in Row over Homework Assignment. Aired 12-12:30a ET
Aired December 19, 2015 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): After almost five years, 250,000 deaths and 12 million Syrians displaced, the U.N. Security Council reaches consensus on a path to peace. We'll have that story.
Plus: who is playing whom?
Could Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin really get along?
We'll tell you why at least one Republican rival is skeptical.
And a legend in life becoming a saint in death: the pope prepares to canonize Mother Teresa.
From CNN World Headquarters here in Atlanta, I'm George Howell. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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HOWELL: And we start this hour in Syria and a glimmer of hope for peace in that part of the world. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the resolution on Friday, designed to end that country's civil war.
The U.N. envoy to Syria says the plan is complicated but that this plan is possible. The resolution sets formal peace talks to begin next month, with progress toward an agreement on a unity government within six months and free elections within 18 months.
Though, on the issue of the future of the status of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, some on the Security Council -- some members still disagree. And there are still many issues that need to be resolved, including the question of which specific party should be involved. Our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, has this report.
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ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Desperate to refocus the world's attention on ISIS, world powers, all stakeholders in Syria, inch closer to agreement on a road map for ending the Syrian civil war.
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We have agreed on a plan of action. And the council's vote today is an important boost on the road to a political settlement.
LABOTT (voice-over): Today, the U.N. Security Council blessed those efforts, beginning with a cease-fire between regime and rebel forces and starting political talks early next year.
But nations can't even agree on which Syrian groups to consider terrorists and which to include in the talks.
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We are all united on the front, that terrorists of all stripes have no place in the talks.
LABOTT (voice-over): And still unresolved, the fate of Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that Assad is going to have to leave in order for the country to stop the bloodletting.
LABOTT (voice-over): But today, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told "Foreign Policy" magazine, President Obama's decision in 2013 to stand down on strikes in Syria, ignoring his own red line on Assad's use of chemical weapons, dealt a severe blow to U.S. credibility, which many argue has given space for ISIS to grow and for Russia to enter.
As the coalition continues to pound ISIS targets in Syria, including these strikes, which helped thwart a massive ISIS attack, the U.S. has set its sights on the group's branch in Libya, killing the affiliate's leader in an airstrike last month.
Now these photos show U.S. military personnel on the ground in Libya, helping to beef up the Libyan army's defenses against jihadists. On a swing through the region, the Secretary of Defense warned ISIS' global reach is never-ending.
ASH CARTER, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We're in Syria in Iraq, which is the home tumor of this movement. We are seeing little nests of ISIL spring up around the world, including here in Afghanistan.
LABOTT: And a U.N. diplomat tells me, these negotiations to be led by the United Nations, are only going to work if the U.S. and Russia stay united. Only they can put pressure on the regime and the opposition groups to stay on track with the political process.
And without them, this diplomat says, the U.N. will only be leading from behind -- Elise Labott, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOWELL: You know, we talk about the war; we talk about the
politics and the path to peace. But this image behind me really tells the story, the story of tens of thousands of people, who have fled their homes, seeking safety through dangerous journeys.
And even though colder temperatures have now slowed the pace, boatloads of people continue to arrive every hour to the shores of Greece. CNN international correspondent Sara Sidner has more from the island of Lesbos, Greece.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They don't know each other's names. They don't speak the same language. But they cling to one another like mother and daughter. One is a refugee from Syria. The other --
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SIDNER (voice-over): -- an Australian volunteer.
ALISON THOMPSON, VOLUNTEER: She was just like in shock and shivering. And so we just wrapped her and she wouldn't let go of me. So she just felt safe. We're just trying to give her love.
SIDNER (voice-over): Alison Thompson has dedicated her life to caring for the most vulnerable, from New York during 9/11 to the shores of Lesbos, Greece, where tattered boats filled with refugees arrive daily.
THOMPSON: This is a kind of a gentle landing, but it gets chaotic, especially at night. The screams are terrifying for us, too, the volunteers. It's like everybody's screaming. And it's so dark you don't see them until they're about 10 feet from the shore.
SIDNER (voice-over): On this day, by 2:00 pm, five distressed boats filled with cold, wet people have been towed in.
This family of five says they escaped from Deir ez-Zor, Syria, with three young children.
"We left because of bombing from al-Assad, war, just war everywhere," father Mohammed al-Ahmed tells us.
The refugee crisis, nowhere near slowing down; as long as the bombs keep falling and the bullets keep flying, the waves of the people will keep coming.
But fear is also rising, as new details about the path of the ringleader of the Paris attackers and two others mimic that of the refugees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Greek media, there was a lot of coverage that one bomber from Paris, he passed from the Greek islands. So I think all this thing gives support to the right-wing parties, their rise in all of Europe. SIDNER: Jason from Athens is here to try to temper that fear,
showing his support for the refugees. Jobless in the stagnant Greek economy, he spends his days rescuing those far worse off.
Hundreds of thousands have made it to the Greek island of Lesbos, the vast majority on dangerous vessels like this rubber dinghy.
Desperate people often running from terrible atrocities with no other options -- Sara Sidner, CNN, Lesbos, Greece.
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HOWELL: The number of refugees and migrants entering Europe will top 1 million in the coming days. Nearly 991,000 people have entered Europe so far by land and sea -- this according to the International Organization for Migration -- more than four times the number last year.
The vast majority, more than 800,000 refugees and migrants, have landed in Greece with nearly 3,700 dead or missing and trying to cross the Mediterranean.
As the world struggles with this crisis in Syria, on the other side of the globe, the U.S. president is focused on the rising fears of attacks here.
Barack Obama landed in San Bernardino, California, just about an hour ago. He met with families of the 14 people who were killed in the attack earlier this month there. Ahead of his visit, the president gave his final news conference of the year. Here's Jim Acosta with more on that.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just before leaving the White House for the holidays in Hawaii, President Obama had a spring in his step and a record he wanted to tout, even as he tried to deliver a reassuring message on the war on ISIS.
OBAMA: Our air campaign will continue to hit ISIL harder than ever, taking out their leaders, their commanders and their forces. We're stepping up our support for our partners on the ground as they push ISIL back.
ACOSTA (voice-over): The president again insisted the nation's law enforcement community is doing all it can to prevent so-called lone wolf terror attacks in the U.S., like the one in San Bernardino, including the monitoring of messages on social media.
OBAMA: Our law enforcement and intelligence professionals are constantly monitoring public posts. And that is part of the visa review process.
ACOSTA (voice-over): On ISIS, the president said he will insist on the departure of Syria's embattled leader, Bashar al-Assad. But he hinted that allies of Assad could remain, a potential shift from his earlier demands that Assad must go and one that could pave the way to a U.S.-Russian partnership to go after ISIS.
The fallout from the terror attack in San Bernardino has the potential to dramatically alter Mr. Obama's final year in office, pulling his attention away from big White House priorities, from a new executive action, the president is planning on gun control to his long-sought goal of closing the terror detention center at Guantanamo.
OBAMA: It will be an uphill battle.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome these Republican candidates.
ACOSTA (voice-over): As for the 2016 race for the White House, the president steered clear of his feelings for Donald Trump and the rest of the Republican field, sounding confident not one of them will follow him into the Oval Office.
OBAMA: I think we will have a strong Democratic nominee. I think that Democratic nominee will win. I think I will have a Democratic successor.
ACOSTA (voice-over): But he also took time to praise new House Speaker Paul Ryan for shepherding a massive $1 trillion spending bill through Congress without any major threats of a government shutdown, proof, the president said, that both parties can work together.
OBAMA: I also want to give Speaker Ryan credit. So --
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OBAMA: -- kudos to him, as well as all the leaders and appropriators who were in this process.
ACOSTA (voice-over): On his last scheduled day in Washington of 2015, the president commuted the sentences of nearly 100 mostly nonviolent drug offenders, all a part of the president's bipartisan push for criminal justice reform.
OBAMA: There has been sincere, serious negotiations and efforts by Democrats and Republicans to create a criminal justice system that is more fair, more even-handed, more proportionate.
ACOSTA: On his way to his family vacation in Hawaii, the president made a stop in San Bernardino to meet with the families of the victims of the terror attack there. The president said during his news conference he won't be a lame duck in his final year of his eight years in office, saying he plans to leave everything on the field -- Jim Acosta, CNN, the White House.
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HOWELL: A mutual admiration society, some say a bromance, appears to be blossoming between these two men, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It follows compliments from the Russian president that Mr. Trump is, quote, "outstanding and talented," and the, quote, "absolute leader" in the U.S. Republican presidential race.
Trump said he would get along very well with Mr. Putin. Listen.
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DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: You know, I'm fine about Putin. I think that he is a strong leader. He is a powerful leader. He has represented his country. That's the way the country is being represented. He's actually got popularity within his country. They respect him as a leader.
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HOWELL: But one of Mr. Trump's presidential rivals, Jeb Bush, is tweeting some scathing criticism of the billionaire candidate.
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JEB BUSH, FORMER GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: Actually, I think to deal with a bully is probably to pop him in the nose. That's how a bully stops.
HOWELL (voice-over): Bush tweeted, quote, "A real leader would stand up, not suck up, to bullies and despots like Putin."
Bush also took Trump to task during a CNN interview.
BUSH: I don't respect Vladimir Putin. He is the leader of an important country, certainly not a regional power, as Barack Obama called him. But to get praise from Vladimir Putin is not going to help Donald Trump. He is not a serious candidate. And he would bring chaos to the presidency, just as he has done to this campaign.
It's entertaining. But the simple fact is, we are at war right now with Islamic terrorism. And he's not offered one compelling, specific thing to do to keep us safe. It's all high-volume, lots of talk but nothing specific because he hasn't taken the time to learn the issues.
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HOWELL: Despite the criticism from Bush and others, Donald Trump is maintaining a commanding lead over the rest of the Republican pack. In the first major survey since the final Republican debate of the year on Tuesday, Mr. Trump sits comfortably at 39 percent of support. This according to a FOX News poll. That's more than his three closest competitors combined: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson.
U.S. officials are concerned that hackers working for a foreign government may have been spying on U.S. government and private companies for the past three years. Computer network company Juniper Networks disclosed a major breach on Thursday.
One U.S. official said the breach is akin to stealing a master key and getting into government buildings. Earlier, my colleague, Jonathan Mann spoke with CNN's U.S. Justice correspondent, Evan Perez, about it. Listen.
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EVAN PEREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What has been found is that, for the last three years, hackers, somebody, altered the source code. Now this is extremely sophisticated. And so the suspicion is that some foreign government spy agency, perhaps from Russia or China -- those are the two countries foremost at the list here by U.S. authorities -- somebody altered the source code of these systems in order to be able, you know, essentially create a back door to be able to get in, on track and spy on encrypted communications.
Now these are the most secure -- supposedly the most secure types of communications systems that use VPN, for instance. You and I use it to log into our laptops. And it does not only affect U.S. government computers. It also affects private companies that rely on VPN to safeguard some of their secrets, whether they're having communications. So this is a very big deal. The Homeland Security Department, the FBI are investigating this. They believe, again, that some foreign government was responsible for this. And it's been, obviously, they've had access to this now for three years. This was only recently discovered.
Juniper Networks, for the record, issued a statement today. They said that they are trying to fix this. And they've been in touch with all of their customers to make sure that they update their security and fix this very big security problem.
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HOWELL: Jonathan Mann and Evan Perez there.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
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HOWELL: Mother Teresa, she cared for the sick, cared for the poor and now she will become a saint. We'll tell you about the second miracle that was attributed to her.
Plus for the second time in just a few weeks, China's capital, look at that, it is facing the highest possible pollution warning. We'll have the story ahead.
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HOWELL: An image of Beijing, China: take a look at that thick layer of smog that is choking the capital city. Beijing environmental authorities have issued another red alert. This is the highest level possible because of this pollution. It is the second time in just a few weeks that we've seen this.
Officials there say this alert is just a precaution. Let's go live to Beijing. Our Matt Rivers is standing by. And, Matt, what are officials doing there about this?
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, George, you say that these measures are precautionary. And at this point, that's a good way to describe that because relatively speaking, the pollution here in Beijing is not that bad. Now it isn't healthy by any stretch of the imagination. The air quality index at the U.S. embassy right now in Beijing hovers around 180. The World Health Organization says it should be about 25.
But for some context and to show you really how bad things can get here in Beijing, an AQI of 180 is drastically less than other days that we've seen so far this year. In fact, it was in late November, early December, that we saw a stretch of five days where the air quality index was well above 500 here.
So for Beijingers, this isn't that bad. That said, the Beijing government did issue that red alert. That does mean that certain mandatory measurements are put into place.
That would include taking about 5 million or so cars off the road by restricting certain license plates. That would mean heavy vehicles, including trash trucks and transportation trucks, are banned from are roadways and certain factories and construction sites have also been closed down.
And come Monday, schools have the option to close, as well as just general businesses here in Beijing. They have the government's permission to close down for the day while this red alert remains in effect until Tuesday local time.
HOWELL: But Matt, you know, when Beijing takes action, when it takes those cars off the road, you can see those skies clear very quickly. I remember just a few months ago, when there was a major national event there, the call to action was set in place. And the sky was a brilliant blue.
RIVERS: That's absolutely right. The difference there would be that where some of these big events, like the military parade that you mentioned, what the government would do is shut down factories and restrict car usage weeks in advance. And so what that does is give the air time to clear out.
What a lot of the residents here in Beijing, their big complaint, is that when red alerts like this one get issued, taking cars off the road and shutting down factories --
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RIVERS: -- really doesn't make that big of an impact in the short term. Now if you kept those cars off the road and kept those factories shut down, it would make a difference in the long term. But in the short term, it's less these red alert measures and more when the wind picks it back up and the weather conditions become more favorable that the smog actually clears out.
HOWELL: Matt, we're looking at images beside you. And then right behind you, the same smoggy sky.
Matt, thank you so much for your reporting there in Beijing.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
And still ahead, Mother Teresa once said that she was -- cared for the unwanted and the unloved. Now she is set to become a saint. We will tell you why she is believed to have cured a man with cancer, as NEWSROOM continues.
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HOWELL: Mother Teresa: she was already known as the Saint of the Gutters. Now the Vatican says it plans to declare an official saint for her next fall. That's after Pope Francis recognized a second miracle that is attributed to her.
The Albanian nun cared for the poorest of poor in the slums of Calcutta, India. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and died 13 years ago.
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HOWELL: Joining us now is Father Edward Beck, CNN religion contributor.
Father Beck, it is good to have you with us. So Mother Teresa, to be declared a saint next year, all due to a miracle. Tell us about this miracle.
FATHER EDWARD BECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you need two miracles to be declared a saint, to be canonized. The first miracle, you're beatified. And John Paul II beatified Mother Teresa. He put her on the fast track actually to beatification so that was done in his lifetime.
And now just yesterday, on his birthday, Pope Francis deemed the second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa and therefore now she will be canonized a saint in September.
HOWELL: So when it comes to the recognition of these miracles, how contentious is it to recognize them?
How do you determine whether they're real?
BECK: Well, there are all kinds of panels doing the investigation. And the medical doctors weigh in. Witnesses weigh in. They have people who try to be contrarian as part of the process and cast any doubt that they can upon it.
But if there's no other explanation, like this miracle, this gentleman in Brazil had a brain infection and tumors. He had been struggling a long time with illness. He was scheduled for surgery. And his wife and priest had been praying for months to Mother Teresa for a cure.
And just before the surgery, the doctors said he sat up, he was awake, tumors were gone, infection was gone and no explanation for it. And by the way, the man was also deemed to be sterile because of all of the medications he had been on. And he now has two children.
And so this is the second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa and is part of her canonization process now.
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HOWELL: And I also asked Father Beck about the criticism that Mother Teresa faced. You can hear more of my interview with Father Beck in just about two hours' time here on CNN NEWSROOM.
Angry backlash over a school homework assignment has shut down an entire community school --
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HOWELL: -- system in the United States. Parents are outraged, fearing the lesson was an attempt to convert children to Islam. Jason Carroll explains.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's happened here just gives you a sense of how sensitive some communities are here in the United States to anything that has to do with the Muslim people or the religion of Islam.
The homework assignment was handed out in a world geography class at Riverheads High School in Stanton, Virginia. That's about 150 miles west of Washington, D.C.
And we should be clear, this was a calligraphy assignment. The 9th grade students were asked to copy Arabic writings. According to the school district, the assignment said, "Here is the Shahade (ph), the Islamic Statement of Faith, written in Arabic. In the space below, try copying it by hand. This should give you an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy."
Now a number of parents were upset by the assignment. Throughout the week, the school district said it received threatening e-mails and calls about that assignment. As a result, the district canceled all classes today; 10,000 students now not attending class. Many parents have accused the teacher of trying to indoctrinate their children with Islam. Some students and parents speaking out about it at a local church.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's why couldn't we just find to write hello, goodbye, you know, normal words, not that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will not have my children set under a woman who indoctrinates them with the Islam religion when I am a Christian. And I want to stand behind Christ.
CARROLL (voice-over): The Augusta school district released a statement about the assignment, saying, "As we have emphasized, no lesson was to designed to promote a religious viewpoint or change any student's religious belief.
"Although students will continue to learn about world religions as required by the State Board of Education and the Commonwealth Standards of Learning, a different nonreligious sample of Arabic calligraphy will be used in the future."
We should also point out that I did speak to a local sheriff there, who says that this assignment was taken from a standard workbook on world religions. This is an assignment that had been handed out before with no repercussions.
We should also point out that a number of students took to Facebook to support the teacher and the calligraphy assignment. We also reached out to the teacher for her comment but we were unable to reach her -- Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
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HOWELL: And that is the news this hour. I'm George Howell. Your world headlines after the break.
