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New Year's Celebrations around the World; Munich Reopens Train Station after Threat; Fire Expert Weighs in on Skyscraper Blaze; Obama to Announce New Executive Action on Guns; Flood Threats in the U.S.; China Ends One-Child Policy; Mira Sorvino Celebrates Anti-Slavery Gains; Looking Ahead to Global Threats in 2016. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired January 01, 2016 - 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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GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to our viewers around the world and a very Happy New Year, wherever you might be watching this hour. This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: And I'm Becky Anderson. And a Happy New Year from Dubai. Now we are keeping an eye on the American West Coast which is one of the last regions to welcome in the New Year.
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ANDERSON (voice-over): These images are coming to us live from Seattle in Washington.
Now the U.S. East Coast still recovering from its New Year's celebrations. We'll take a look at that.
But let's have a look at Vegas for you before we do.
All right.
And the East Coast recovering from its celebrations.
That is how the Big Apple welcomed the New Year. Thousands of people gathered in Times Square.
And in the Russian capital of Moscow, this was the scene near St. Basil's Cathedral.
And of course, Australia, one of the first countries to ring in 2016. Fireworks lit up Sydney's Opera House.
HOWELL: Beautiful, beautiful lights around the world.
Meanwhile, though, there are concerns about a terror plot in Munich, Germany. It is 9:00 am there now, where the city's trains are again running as scheduled. This after police shut the system down and evacuated two stations over concerns over a terror threat on New Year's Eve.
The city's police president says between five and seven people were planning suicide attacks there. Additional officers are on patrol to hunt for possible suspects and police have asked people to stay away from large gatherings.
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JOACHIM HERRMANN, BAVARIAN INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): There was information from a friendly intelligence agency that ISIS was planning an attack at midnight tonight at Munich's main train station or in Pasing.
The Munich police informed the public and the decision was above all made to restrict travel at Pasing train station and also Munich main train station. Then all of the transport in Pasing. I think this was the right decision because I believe that we cannot take risks regarding such concrete threats about concrete places and concrete times.
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HOWELL: The threat taken seriously there as it was also in Rochester, New York, where authorities say they stopped plans for a New Year's Eve attack inspired by ISIS.
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HOWELL (voice-over): Twenty-five-year-old Emanuel Lutchman -- this man you see here -- charged with attempting to provide material support for the terror group. Investigators say that he planned to kill people at a bar and a restaurant. The city of Rochester cancelled its New Year's Eve fireworks show. Lutchman faces up to 20 years in prison.
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ANDERSON: Well, investigators are trying to determine what caused a massive fire at a high-rise hotel here in downtown Dubai. Smoke could still be seen coming from the 63-story building as the sun came up on Friday.
It's been more than 14 hours now since flames raced up the side of the Address Hotel downtown. One source told CNN the fire ignited on the 20th floor, possibly after some curtains caught on fire, although that has not been confirmed. Witnesses said they heard explosions as the fire raged.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, we were waiting for the fireworks at Burj Khalifa and then there was a lot of smoke coming out and we saw the fire here in the hotel and also two explosions. And it was scary.
ANDERSON (voice-over): Well, what would cause the flames to spread so quickly then up the side of that building? Well, earlier, we asked Glenn Corbett (ph), who's a tactical fire
expert, to help answer that question for you. This is what he said.
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GLENN CORBETT (PH), TACTICAL FIRE EXPERT: We've had problems in the last 10 years or so with synthetic materials, plastic-based materials that are installed in the outside of buildings for decorative purposes. The most notable fire we had several years ago was at the Monte Carlo casino in Las Vegas --
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CORBETT (PH): -- a similar situation but of course a smaller fire. I mean, it was very large there. But this was enormous, the fire that they had which effectively spread up the outside of the building. And I believe that when this investigation is conducted and when it's concluded that we're going to find out that that exterior wall surface played the predominant role in what we saw happen today.
ANDERSON (voice-over): Despite the fire, which broke out at about 9:35 pm on New Year's Eve, a spectacular New Year's fireworks display still went on as planned near the hotel.
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HOWELL: The U.S. President Barack Obama is on vacation right now in Hawaii but he is preparing to announce new executive action on the issue of gun control. Our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta has this report.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For President Obama the final round is about to begin.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In 2016, I'm going to leave it out all on the field.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Up first in the president's eighth and last year in office, Mr. Obama's long-promised response to mass shootings in the U.S.
Sources familiar with the plan say it will be a package of executive actions on gun control, expected before the January 12th State of the Union and aimed at the gun show loophole, which allows some firearms sellers to avoid conducting background checks on their customers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so the beginning of this year?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it'll be fair, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
ACOSTA (voice-over): The White House argues the president's actions will be within his executive authority and in line with polls that show broad support for tightening background checks.
ERIC SCHULTZ, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Unfortunately, Congress hasn't shown the courage to do so. So that's why the president asked his team to look at what we can do administratively.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Vowing to fight the move, the nation's biggest gun lobby, the NRA, says the president is doing what he always does when he doesn't get his way, defying the will of the people and using executive action.
Another controversial proposal coming in the new year, the president will ask Congress to shut down the terror detention center at Guantanamo, a facility Mr. Obama may close on his own, if lawmakers balk at the White House plan.
OBAMA: It'll be an uphill battle.
ACOSTA (voice-over): The president also hopes to travel to Cuba and perhaps more than a dozen other countries in what's shaping up to be a global farewell tour.
But the President's agenda could be upended by setbacks in the war on ISIS, a foreign policy crisis that could complicate White House plans to have the president campaign heavily with the 2016 Democratic nominee, a prospect that may well put him and Hillary Clinton on the trail together again.
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: But, first, the president will lay out his plans for his final year in office at the fast-approaching State of the Union address, which is less than two weeks away. White House officials say don't expect a long laundry list of proposals, in part because the president is almost out of time -- Jim Acosta, CNN, traveling with the president in Honolulu.
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ANDERSON: The U.S. State Department has released more than 5,000 pages of Hillary Clinton's work-related emails and text messages. It was, though, fewer than the 8,000 expected. Clinton's emails as secretary of state have been at the center of controversy because of her use of a private server.
She is now running, of course, for president. Some of the emails continue an aide's flowchart to determine who got to ride with the secretary.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate Ben Carson's campaign has been shaken up. His campaign manager, deputy campaign manager and communications director all resigned on Thursday. Carson is currently struggling in the polls. The neurosurgeon shifted some other advisers around, saying it is necessary to invigorate his campaign. Meanwhile, political rival Ted Cruz, surging in the polls now. His
supporters are getting ready to release a million-dollar ad blitz on Monday to attract voters in the key state of Iowa.
HOWELL: Now to the issue of flooding. It is causing big problems in the U.S. Midwest. There is a threat that some levees could break just north of the city of St. Louis, Missouri, due to heavy rains there. This comes as floodwaters have buried networks of streets in that region.
The Red Cross is opening shelters in Missouri and Illinois to accommodate the thousands of residents who are evacuating these storm- hit areas.
Let's go for the latest now on these floods. Our meteorologist Karen Maginnis is standing by at the International Weather Center.
Karen, so is the situation getting worse or will there be a break?
KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It looks like a lot of that water that's right around St. Louis is gradually going to make its way down towards the lower portion of the Mississippi and right around Cape Girardeau we could see record-setting flooding. Now we have been comparing all of the flood records back to 1993.
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MAGINNIS: That set the standard. This is a different ballgame now, where we saw so many areas underwater, so impacted by the high water, not just along the Mississippi but the tributaries that lead or flow into the Mississippi. They have been rising over the last several days.
A number on the Meramec River, some of these smaller towns with a few thousand people in them.
But it isn't just across Missouri. It extends all the way from Iowa and Illinois down towards the southeast and into the Carolinas. More than 300 rivers at or above flood stage.
The Meramec River floods fairly quickly. It's notorious for doing that. But these tiny towns that you're seeing all along here, from Eureka, which essentially was isolated a few days ago, to Valley and into Arnold, they have been so inundated with the rainfall.
Houses -- house after house, farmland; we have cars; people just have really been struggling across this region, thousands and thousands. It has already taken the lives in excess of 20 people, most of them from having driven through the flooded waters across this region.
The St. Louis region right now, the Mississippi River, as we speak, George, is cresting, not a record, its third highest but it has devastated this region -- back to you.
HOWELL: Wow, Karen, thank you so much. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. And still ahead, a New Year and a new
family structure in China. That nation ends its one-child policy. How China is preparing for the change ahead.
Plus actress Mira Sorvino is celebrating in Los Angeles but it has nothing to do with her films. She's fighting modern-day slavery. That story ahead.
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MIRA SORVINO, ACTOR AND U.N.'S GOODWILL AMBASSADOR ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING: I am a Harvard grad and I did my undergraduate thesis for the ELC on racial conflict because I wanted to get to the bottom why people treat each other as things.
The shock for me with human trafficking is there is actually no reason, based on a bias, that people are abused. It is the profit motives. So around the world because it is profitable, people take other human beings and make them modern-day slaves so they can make money off of them.
And it sort of shocks your system because you can't say, oh, well, it is because they're that religion or that gender or that ethnicity. It is simply the love of money.
So it fit in with what I had been doing academically earlier. But it took it to a whole new level of this is not explained away by history. This is a persistent problem with human beings and we have to fight it with every tooth and nail that we have.
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ANDERSON: Welcome back.
Now North Korea's leader blames South Korea for increased mistrust between the neighboring countries. Kim Jong-un's comments came in a 30-minute speech broadcast on North Korean television a short time ago.
He also criticized the U.S. for hosting joint military drills with the South near his country's border. He says the exercises added to the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
The start of the New Year in China is bringing a new family policy. The one-child restrictions are over. Couples are now allowed to have two children legally without any fines. CNN's Matt Rivers reports. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Maternity wards like this one could be filled with more little bundles of --
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RIVERS: -- joy very soon. Starting January 1st, Chinese couples can now have two children each, after final approval of a momentous change to the country's one-child policy that's been in place for more than 30 years.
RIVERS (voice-over): A Chinese demography expert told CNN this new policy could affect 100 million couples and result in a baby boom in 2017 and 2018 as more and more people grow accustomed to the idea of having two children.
It's something like facilities, like Oasis International Hospital, are eagerly preparing for.
DR. LI SHAOFEN (PH), OASIS INTERNATIONAL HOSPITAL (through translator): As a doctor, I'll try my best to get prepared for the challenge. We have recruited many new doctors and nurses in the past few months.
RIVERS (voice-over): But there is some debate over just how many children will be added to the mix. Demography experts think the fertility rate won't rise very much in the long term. And the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau thinks the most likely scenario would see total births rise by about 23 million over the next several decades.
The one-child policy was extremely unpopular among many everyday Chinese. The system led to a bureaucracy, employing hundreds of thousands to enforce the law. Couples were forced to pay heavy fines for having a second child but many could not afford it. So forced abortions and sterilizations became a regular occurrence, according to many human rights groups.
Advocates for changing the law have said curbing China's population growth has been unnecessary for many years and now China faces a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce and many more boys than girls. Simply put, there aren't enough young people to take care of the old.
RIVERS: It is unclear if this will be enough to offset China's aging population but officials know that something has to be done. The government says its population could be the oldest in the world within the next 15 years, with more than 400 million people older than age 60.
With the one-child policy ending, the government is hoping that maternity wards like this one are busier than ever before -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Beijing.
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HOWELL: This week we are profiling anti-slavery heroes partnering with CNN's Freedom Project. Today's hero is actress Mira Sorvino.
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SORVINO: Here's to Yma (ph) and Flor (ph), two of our very own, who are now going to be advising our president of this country.
The CAST is really a model. I would say they're like anywhere in the country, take a CAST and say replicate this. This is best practices but you have to have somebody like Kay Buck at the heart and you have to have the survivors being the lifeblood of it. Otherwise it won't work.
The anti-trafficking, the anti-modern day slavery work that I do is enormously fulfilling and has become a complete passion of mine. This is something that I think that the average person never thinks about. There's upward of 30 million people living as slaves right now in every country.
KAY BUCK, CEO, CAST LA: She is in it for the long haul and tries to learn as much as she can about an issue in order to be a more effective advocate.
SORVINO: I am so proud of you.
FLOR (PH): I'm living proof that human trafficking exists but also that there is hope and help nowadays.
SORVINO (voice-over): The current statistics are that only one in 100 slaves will be rescued.
And to think that each one of them is a Flor (ph), who is an incredibly beautiful soul.
The United Nations' Office of Drugs and Crime called me and asked me if I would become their Goodwill Ambassador on Human Trafficking. And it is an enormous honor and I was sworn in 2009.
BUCK: She's contributed in so many ways. I mean, first and foremost, I think she has demonstrated to survivors that even someone who lives a really good life and is a celebrity, is on television, that she's still interested in their individual experiences.
SORVINO (voice-over): We have to eradicate this. It cannot exist under our watch and it does. And we all are a party to it by our non- action. What we need are people who are brave enough to stand up against these forces.
You know, we need people to step up and be heroes because it's really this, you know, monumental fight that we fight. And we have no resources but we have the heart.
HOWELL (voice-over): Do be sure to join our Richard Quest for a discussion about human trafficking and what's being done to dismantle the international networks behind it.
That's at 4:00 pm in London, only here on CNN.
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HOWELL: You're watching --
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HOWELL: -- CNN NEWSROOM. More news right after the break.
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ANDERSON: From ISIS to the Ebola crisis, last year, as you all have been well aware, brought a wide range of global threats. And our top international correspondents who reported from the middle of it all, they sat down to talk about how they think those challenges might evolve in 2016.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're seeing the collapse of Arab states basically, one after another. And God knows which country may be next.
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I hope I'm wrong, but I think it's going to get worse. And I really, really, really don't want to be right about this.
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NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In terms of the next phase in ISIS' evolution, are you looking towards Libya?
Do you think that that's where the push is going to be?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't know. I don't know. I think we're going to see a lot of changes in Syria and Iraq possibly, possibly ones that have unintended consequences.
I think we're going to see many problems in Afghanistan, too, and ISIS are a very attractive brand to a lot of very poor and angry young men there.
And I think, yes, Libya will be a problem.
But I think also the West have slightly got their heads around Libya.
DAMON: I think it's going to get a lot worse in the sense of kind of what you're talking about. You know, it is going to change but it's still going to be there and that fear that they're able to create and generate is going to be there.
And let's not forget, in all of this, I mean, the Assad regime also and what they're doing to the population and how those actions and the fact that people feel so abandoned by the West that failed to come in and save them, when it comes to dying at the hands of Assad, that's what drove so many of them into the -- I mean, how many activists do we all know who right now are either dead, fled or they have become radical?
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ELBAGIR: Or disappeared.
WATSON: And let's not forget that you have just a mind-boggling number of foreign militaries, all flying and backing different proxies with completely contradictory strategic goals.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's incoherent international meddling --
ELBAGIR: But I think now there is a consensus forming around the need to actually move.
You know?
WARD: But I also think everyone has a different idea about how to bring down ISIS. The Russians think that bombing the Turks --
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WATSON: The Russians and the Iranians are supporting the Assad regime. The --
WALSH: But ISIS is a nice lightning rod for what is a huge conflagration in the whole region, that there is a need for the region to take ownership of the problem and fix it themselves.
Even if ISIS is somehow defeated, that doesn't fix the problem of the Saudis and the Iranians being octogenarians, running a youthful population with diminishing returns.
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WARD: But that's what it comes to, right?
Ultimately, Saudi Arabia and Iran need to like be locked in a room together.
ELBAGIR: At the time same, while we're all kind of hopeful that there will be some consensus moving toward solving the presence in Iraq, you have an ISIS presence growing in Yemen, because we're all ignoring the reality of the Saudi Arabian bombings --
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WARD: -- but I really believe it's possible that we are seeing a seismic, tectonic shift within the Middle East and, then over the next few decades, you're going to see a lot of these borders rewritten. And they were artificially designated borders anyway.
DAMON: The way governments were set up and the way boundaries were drawn was unsustainable. They were never going to last. But it didn't have to be this violent.
ELBAGIR: This mythology that we can protect ourselves, that we can close borders, that we can close doors, with the Ebola crisis --
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ELBAGIR: -- last year, with the refugee -- with the Syria crisis washing up on Europe's shores, and I think Europe essentially knows that it is existential to get its house in order this year.
DAMON: I don't think we are mature enough to actually make the right decisions. I don't. I'm -- I have, really sadly, lost a lot of faith in humanity.
ELBAGIR: You say that, but I know that each single one of us has a story from the field, where we have been completely overwhelmed by the kindness and the extraordinary generosity of people in the worst possible situations.
And I think that's what I hold onto.
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HOWELL: Some great insights there from our correspondents, who have been in the middle of it all there.
And with that we thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell at the CNN Center in Atlanta.
ANDERSON: And I'm Becky Anderson in Dubai. A very Happy New Year. We want to leave you now with some of the highlights from the New Year's celebrations from around the world.
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