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Searching for Survivors in Taiwan Aftermath; Iraqi Refugees Facing Uncertainty in Europe; Taking Donald Trump to Task; The Spread of the Zika Virus; Presidential Race Goes to New Hampshire; The Trumpertantrum. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired February 06, 2016 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:06] GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Searching the rubble for survivors after an earthquake tears buildings apart in Southern Taiwan. We will have the report from the scene for you.
Plus, Iraqi refugees who risked everything to get to Europe only to decide they'd rather be back home.
And taking Donald Trump to task. Barbara Bush endured snowy conditions to campaign in New Hampshire for her son, but where was the Republican frontrunner?
From CNN world's headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world.
I'm George Howell, CNN NEWSROOM starts, right now.
And a good day to you. We begin this hour in Taiwan's oldest city, Tainan. It is dealing with a devastation of an earthquake that killed at least seven people and has injured more than 150.
You see these live images here in Tainan. Rescue workers are at the site of a collapsed 17 story building in the southern city there. They are frantically looking for anyone who may still be trapped in the mountains of concrete and debris.
The residential building crumbled after the powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Saturday while people were asleep. Rescue workers have been combing through the rubble for some 12 hours now. Plus, they've been pulling out survivors with their bare hands.
More than 200 have been rescued so far including a woman and her family. She spoke from her hospital bed. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Through translator): Fortunately, when we were trapped, we were stuck under a space created by a baby crib and a closet door. So that things wouldn't fall on us and air was able to get in.
I was so afraid that what if the rescuers couldn't find us that I would start screaming as soon as I heard anyone looking for survivors. And since my husband and I were trapped in different rooms, we kept making sure each of us was OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: This earthquake hit near a heavily populated city. Tainan is home to nearly 2 million people.
Harry Wong's (ph) family lives in Tainan, and he was in that city when the earthquake hit. And now, joins us live. Thank you so much for being with us.
So, tell our viewers here in the United States and around the world what your experience was when this happened.
HARRY WONG, TAINAN RESIDENT: Sure. So I was basically -- I had just come here, visiting family and I was in the kitchen looking for an iPhone charger and suddenly the earthquake hit. And at first, it was just a little bit of shake and I was hoping that it would kind of go away from there, but as it started to continue I knew that this was -- it felt a little different.
So, you know, at the peak of it, it felt like an eraser or one of those rubber erasers. The building just felt like one of those rubber erasers that starting to, kind of, move.
HOWELL: Wow. And what we're looking at these images right now there in Tainan. These images of rescuers combing through this building that was partially collapsed.
But, talk to us about what you've experienced since that earthquake. Have you felt more aftershocks and have they been pretty strong?
WONG: So there have been a few tremors here and there, but I don't think it felt anything, you know, nearly at that magnitude.
So, I know that there were some of that happened shortly after the initial hit. And then, something this morning that -- but I didn't feel anything else after that.
HOWELL: Harry, as we led into this and set up the situation there, we're talking about some 2 million people in that city looking at all this damage. You can imagine that there are a lot of people who will be without home, without water, without electricity for some time.
What can you tell, what's happening for people to help them, you know, as, you know, we see these crews dig through the rubble?
WONG: So I think that the community has been pretty strong here. Most of it has been, you know, for the people that weren't impacted, they're looking at how to help, you know. I know people who was here. Immediately, texts are going out, is everybody OK, even in the early hours of the nights and then even in the mornings.
So I think, people here are quite supportive of the people that are in danger.
HOWELL: Harry, we appreciate you being with us and are thankful that you're OK after this deadly earthquake there in Tainan. Thank you for your time and we wish you safety.
WONG: Thank you very much.
HOWELL: Thank you.
And stay tuned for more news and analysis from Taiwan later in this hour. We will have this story and continue to cover it here on CNN.
We move now on to Turkey where the President is demanding Moscow be held accountable for the people Russia has killed in Syria.
Speaking at a news conference in West Africa, President Erdogan, says Moscow is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths as a result of its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[05:05:09]RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRESIDENT OF TURKEY (Through translator): I laughed at the Russian approach to this issue. Russia, must be held accountable for the people it has killed within Syria's border.
By cooperating with the regime, the number of people they have killed has reached 400,000.
Russia occupies Syria now with the Navy base in Tartus and an Airbase in Latakia. It is an effort to build a boutique state for Assad
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: Mr. Erdogan's comments will likely worsen already strained relations between Russia and Turkey.
Yet another humanitarian catastrophe that is what activists say is about to happen in the city of Aleppo. The Syrian regime with Russian air support is fighting rebel -- fighting rebels I should say to retake Syria's former economic powerhouse and the assault has lead 2000 of Syrians led them to run for their lives into Turkey.
Here is CNN, Arwa Damon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARWA DAMON, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Beyond this warning that upwards of 300,000 civilians are potentially at risk if Assad's forces are able to lay siege to the city of Aleppo.
These are people who live in the eastern portion of the city and that is not counting the tens of thousands who are already fleeing the Aleppo countryside as the regime forces advance under cover of Russian air strikes.
And those who have made it to the border in Turkey have been forced to wait because the border continues to remain closed.
One nonprofit able to go through and provide those who are on the other side with some tents, but they are still in desperate need of food, water and additional medical supplies.
People describing the bombardment by what they say is mostly Russian fighter jets as being the most intense they have seen since the fighting broke out in Syria some five years ago.
One man who we spoke to on this side saying that he was waiting for his relatives to eventually hopefully come through describing their village where he said they were facing Russian bombardment, an advance by Assad's forces but also the ongoing threat of ISIS.
And those families who are now fleeing, they are families and people who waited this long because they truly hoped that there would be some sort of resolution, some sort of end to the violence. And, now they themselves find themselves forced to make that impossible decision of leaving everything and their homeland behind.
Arwa Damon, CNN, at Tegel's border in Turkey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: After risking everything and spending thousands of dollars to flee the war-torn country of Iraq, there has been a rush of refugees returning home. They say going back to uncertainty in Iraq is better than the conditions that they now face in Germany.
Senior International correspondent Atika Shubert has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ATIKA SHUBERT, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Starting out at about 9:00 a. m. Every morning, a queue forms in front of Berlin, Iraq Embassy, a line of refugees who have given up on their dreams of Germany and now want to go home.
It costs $6000 for this man to get on a crowded smuggler's boat from Turkey to Greece in front to the (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through translator): Most of the Iraqis here want to go back, 90 percent he told us. Here there is only bread and cheese. We can't live like this. I would tell people don't come. You'll regret it.
SHUBERT: Rain or shine, there is always a much longer wait at Berlin's social services. Some are here to register their asylum applications others have medical claims or unemployment benefits to process.
Some refugee applications take just a month to clear. But many can take a year or more, a wait so long that some refugees are now suing the German government.
And now Germany has ruled that refugees may have to wait two years before their families can join them.
Mind-numbing bureaucracy, cold winter, strange food, a language and customs that many here find hard to understand. For an increasing number of Iraqis, heading back to their war-torn home is the better option.
Every week there is now a direct flight from Berlin airport onto Erbil and Baghdad. And according to Iraqi airways, they say in some flights, as many as 30 percent of the passengers are refugees who want to go home.
The mood is good at Iraqi Airways check-in. Many of those inline are Kurdish showing off their temporary passports currently issued by the Iraqi Embassy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through translator): I'm going back to my family, this man tells us. It's a surprise. I didn't tell them. I'm just going to knock on the door and then they will know I'm home.
SHUBERT: Since September, Iraqi Airways have had at the least 100 refugees flying home every week and that number is rising. A ticket costs about $250.
[05:10:01]That's a bargain compared to the $9000 Mohammed (inaudible) spent to be smuggled into Germany.
Today he leaves bitterly disappointed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Through translator): Honestly, it's a joke, he tells us. We heard it would be wonderful here, but it wasn't. It's very crowded and it gets worse as more people come.
The bureaucracy is slow. Many applications are not even accepted in the end because too many people are coming in. And that's the reason I'm leaving, he said.
SHUBERT: For some Iraqis, it seems their dream is a one way ticket back home.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: In the meantime, there are several anti-refugee demonstrations that are being held Saturday across Europe. The marchers are protesting what they call the Islamization of the west.
We are learning chilling new details about the bomb that nearly brought down an airliner this week as it took off from Mogadishu.
CNN's Brian Todd had this report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A source close to the investigation tells CNN the blast that ripped this hole in the fuselage of a plane full of passengers was caused by a bomb concealed in a laptop. And it appears the only passenger killed may have been the bomber, blown out of the hole by the explosion. The source tells CNN investigators believe the attack was orchestrated by al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda's brutal affiliate in Somalia.
Somalian officials identify the bomber as Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh, an elderly Somali national. They're not certain if he was a member of the terror group. Either way analysts say if al-Shabaab is behind the attack, it shows a frightening advancement in its capabilities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we've seen with al-Shabaab over the last few years is the group increasingly getting into the international terrorism business. They have been developing a more sophisticated international terrorist unit capable of launching attacks in the region.
TODD: The explosion occurred between 12,000 and 14,000 feet and the pilot was able to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu.
A source familiar with the investigation says if the plane had reached cruising altitude when the blast occurred, it would have been catastrophic. More chilling, the bomber apparently knew precisely where to sit and how to place the device to maximize damage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in this case you have it along the outer edge of the seats directly against the fuselage skin and directly over the center wing tank. Both of those are recipes for real damage.
TODD: Sources say TNT was the explosive used. It should have been easily detected. Now investigators are asking serious questions about airport security in Mogadishu.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is what technologies are being deployed. Physical inspection is not sufficient enough. You actually have to use technology that can detect the trace explosives and that might be secreted in a laptop or other types of technologies.
TODD: One man who could have helped the al-Shabaab get that bomb passed the airport security, Ibrahim al-Asiri, the master bomb maker for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Western intelligence officials say he was behind the underwear bomb and the printer cartridge bomb plots which targeted planes heading to America.
Terrorism analysts say al-Shabaab and al-Asiri's group have forged ties with one another. And al-Shabaab's recruit they have trained in bomb-making in Yemen.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: This is CNN NEWSROOM and still ahead, the next big contest in the U.S. Presidential race is just days away. And there is tension on the campaign trail between these two Democratic contenders.
Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:16:18] HOWELL: Welcome back. We have this just into the CNN NEWSROOM.
South Korea says the North has now moved up its window to test a long range missile. The South Korean defense ministry says Pyongyang plans to begin its launch a day earlier, February 7th, now. Its original window was the 8th through the 25th of the month. The areas where debris would fall remain unchanged. We'll continue to follow the story.
And now back to the top story we're following this hour that earthquake in Taiwan and its aftermath.
Evelyn Chen is on the scene there, a reporter with CNN affiliate Set TV in the city of Tainan which is near the epicenter of this earthquake. That's sought so much damage.
Evelyn, we see again where some 12 plus, 13 hours after this earthquake happened. What are you seeing there? What's the latest?
EVELYN CHEN, CNN REPORTER: We can see now there because the collapsed building here, we are on the north side of this collapsed building and we can see that those authorities, they use concrete bridge to hold up the structure as well. And they are using four orange (inaudible). Those four poles are (inaudible) it's used to support the structure, so that the collapsed building will now fall to the north or side or again.
And we can see now they used the concrete bridge and the (inaudible) to support the structure so that it make a hole over there. So that the rescue teams they can come inside. The rescue team has already restart their rescue effort right now. There are at least 20 rescuers, they are already going inside the rubbles to search for more and more lives.
But as we can see now, the sun has set and the weather is getting colder and colder. And now so far, the building has collapsed more than 14 hours.
So the signal of life has been weaker and weaker. But still they still located five lives on the sixth floor and also five more on the 13th floor over there.
And so you can see that they are using flashlights to locate some lives. And they also use equipment to search for lives already inside those rubbles. Because as I mentioned before, the sun has set, the weather is getting colder and colder.
HOWELL: Right.
CHEN: And over -- just near the collapsed building, there is a tent to see foundation.
They also bring fire place to warm up the rescuers and the families over here. And one of the relative of the missing people told us his aunt and eight people family is still in the wreckage. Alive or dead, unknown. The outcome perhaps not optimistic.
HOWELL: Evelyn just briefly here and again from your live camera here very, very dramatic situation there ...
CHEN: Yes.
HOWELL: ... to see how precarious it is, you know, to -- for these rescue crews to go into that building and for them to continue looking for people.
I want to ask you, since your time there on the scene reporting, have you felt many aftershocks, and if you have, have they been strong?
CHEN: Actually, I got here at about 9:00 a.m. in the morning. But the quake, the major earthquake, happened in about 3:00 a.m. in the morning.
When I got here, I didn't feel lots of aftershocks, but though some rescuers told us about at 5:00, 7:00, there are lots of aftershocks.
[05:20:09]And some of them are very big. So that that they were worried the building will collapse. So that will they come out. They restart the rescue effort just maybe one hour ago.
HOWELL: Evelyn Chen, live for us in Tainan, Taiwan.
CHEN: Yes.
HOWELL: Evelyn, thank you so much for your reporting there.
On to another story we are following. It is crunch time again for the U.S. presidential candidates. The State of New Hampshire and the primary, it is on Tuesday. And there is a great deal at stake for many of these contenders.
No Republican has won the presidential nomination in the modern era without first either winning Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary.
On the Democratic side of things, it's happened just twice. So you can imagine the pressure is on big time.
Republican candidates are blanketing the State of New Hampshire in their final push for the primary except for Donald Trump who is blaming a snowstorm for canceling at least one event. The real estate mogul is currently leading in the polls, but his Republican rivals, they are not far behind him.
Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: By the way I'm number one in New Hampshire. Will you please keep me there? This is ridiculous. JIM ACOSTA, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: After deciding to fly back to New York and spend last night at home, Donald Trump learned a cold hard lesson in New Hampshire politics.
Sometimes it snows. His private plane stuck in New York, Trump scrapped his lone event of the day in New Hampshire tweeting, "Big storm, moved my event to Monday."
Instead Trump released a video message from his office praising New Hampshire's motto, "Live free or die.''
TRUMP: It means liberty, it means freedom. What a great slogan. Congratulations, New Hampshire. Wonderful job.
ACOSTA: Jeb Bush mocked Trump on Twitter noting his mom Barbara Bush is still braving the elements saying, "My 90-year-old mother made it out to campaign.''
BARBARA BUSH, FORMER UNITED STATES FIRST LADY: Vote for Jeb.
ACOSTA: Candidates trudging through the pre-primary snow is a New Hampshire tradition. Marco Rubio joked the real estate tycoon was behind the winter storm.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R-F:) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'll make America snow again, right?
ACOSTA: A new CNN/WMUR poll finds Trump's lead in New Hampshire may be melting. His GOP rivals are catching up with the nearly a third of the voters surveyed undecided.
And Rubio, who has surged to second place is taking a pounding.
Jeb Bush is knocking Rubio's complaints about attacks coming from other contenders as childish.
JEB BUSH, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is so unfair. You know it's not.
ACOSTA: The publisher of the New Hampshire "Union Leader'' whose endorsed Chris Christie piled on. "Rubio just got out of daycare'', adding "I don't think he's got the gravities that any of the three governors sill on the race have.''
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Experience and judgment account in the Oval Office.
Jeb Bush is a leader who will keep our country safe.
ACOSTA: Bush is touting his experience and steadiness from an ad featuring his brother, the former president to his mother, the former first lady, hitting Trump.
B.BUSH: I'm not getting in a spitting match with him. He can spit further than I can.
ACOSTA: Barbara Bush tells CBS, her son is just too polite compared to Trump.
TRUMP: We'll going to knock the (inaudible) out of ISIS. Going to knock the (inaudible) out of them.
J. BUSH: I don't think a president would ever have shouted profanities in a speech in front of thousands of people with kids in the crowd.
ACOSTA: But Mrs. Bush told CNN, Jaime Gangel, she isn't wasting any energy thinking about her son's nemesis.
B.BUSH: I'm not crazy about what he says about women. I don't even think about him. I'm sick of him. That's very strong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: That was our Senior White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta reporting. And of course stay with us as CNN continues to cover these presidential primaries.
So Saturday is the final Republican debate. And we will of course have the very latest for you here on CNN.
Now let's talk about the weather situation. So Derek Van Dam, you know, Donald Trump, he is tough with words there as we heard in that report, but headed back to New York because of a snowstorm that was coming and could have called you.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I'm offended he didn't get my official prediction. You know, what is that? And I've often wondered if these potential presidential nominees have teams of meteorologists who actually follow this.
HOWELL: It would be helpful.
VAN DAM: It would be helpful, especially when you have your own plane, I guess, right?
HOWELL: Yeah.
VAN DAM: So all eyes were on Iowa just a few days ago. They had a well, some snow that threatened that area.
In New Hampshire got a little bit of snow from the recent snowstorm up the East Coast. And now we've got the primaries coming up on Tuesday.
Will the weather cancel any of the primary events? Probably not. But let's take a close look. How about that George? Check this out.
We have another similar situation compared to what we saw about three days ago, two days ago rather, when Donald Trump, he actually again stayed in New York City because of a very fast moving low pressure system along the New England Coast that brought a swathe of snow from New York into Boston as well as of the southern sections of New Hampshire. [05:25:15] Well, check out what's coming for late Monday and into Tuesday. You can see just how close that is. But New Hampshire really only seeing a bit of cloud cover from this low pressure system along the East Coast.
So we're not actually anticipating this to impact the primaries in any significant fashion.
But nonetheless, let's break it down. The GFS, that's the Global American Model, snowfall totals going forward into the rest of the weekend and into the early parts of next week including Tuesday, the day of the primaries in New Hampshire, showing maybe one to upwards of three inches of snowfall locally from few little systems moving through and then the potential nor'easter along the East Coast.
Here's our arctic blast settling in behind the system. This is probably the bigger story for anyone heading to the polls for the primaries in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
It will be extremely cold. We're talking about temperatures running five, 10 degrees Fahrenheit below where they should be this time of year on Tuesday. You can see the average high temperature just to my right.
Now, it's not only Concord, New Hampshire, the capital, that will feel the brunt of the cold air so will the "Big Apple" and so will the nation's capital.
But look what's happening over the Western U.S., we are warming up nicely. And have you heard apparently there is this little football match that's being played in San Francisco. Go Broncos. 72 degrees, not bad.
And if you're interested, we took a little bit of a weather survey to find out how warm temperatures have become over the past 50 years of playing the Super Bowl.
And Phoenix, Arizona has actually had a five degree warming trends over the past 50 Super Bowls ever played.
So that would be your warmest, warmest quickly, most quickly warming city over the past 50 years.
HOWELL: Cool. Derek, thank you so much.
VAN DAM: All right.
HOWELL: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. And still ahead, Bernie Sanders, he could make history. He could become the first Jewish president.
Coming up, we'll tell you how Israeli Jews feel about his candidacy.
Plus, the party does not miss a beat at Rio's Carnival. We'll hit the beach to find out why not everyone is too concerned about the Zika virus. Live from Atlanta and broadcasting right around the globe this hour.
You're watching CNN worldwide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:30:55] HOWELL: A warm welcome back to our viewers. Here in the United States and around the world. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Good to have you with us this hour. I'm George Howell.
The headlines we're following for you: (HEADLINES)
HOWELL: Hundred of rescue workers, they are coming (ph) to rubble searching for survivors after a powerful earthquake, so strong it toppled the 17-storey residential building in Southern Taiwan.
The 6.4 magnitude quake has killed at least seven people in the city of Tainan. More than 150 other were injured. The quake jolted the city early Saturday morning as people were asleep. Searchers have pulled through more than 200 people from the rubble I should say.
For more on this very powerful earthquake, let's bring in Elise Hu. She is a reporter with the U.S. broadcaster National Public Radio, who is in Taiwan's capital Taipei at this hour.
Elise, good to have you with us. So look, you are a couple of hours obviously from the epicenter, but you still felt it there in Taipei. Can you tell our viewers what was your experience.
ELISE HU, U.S. NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: That's right. This happened about 4:00 in the morning local time here in Taipei. So most of the island was asleep, including myself. This was a strong enough quake to be felt here in Taipei which is about three hours north of the epicenter. My mother felt it, my infant daughter, my six month old, did feel it because she was awakened which then awakened me. But the other half of my house hold was able to sleep through it. Myself included.
HOWELL: Wow. So I know that you've been following the efforts there as far as the rescue efforts. Can you tell us, what have you learned from what you've seen?
HU: That's right. Well, your top line numbers are correct. More than 400 people have been treated at hospitals and more than 200 have been rescued from that apartment -- around that apartment building where most of the damage was sustained.
HOWELL: That's right.
HU: But rescuers are really scrambling in a pretty difficult and dangerous situation. As you can see from the footage, the complex essentially collapsed on to itself. And so the structural integrity of the building is really in question. A lot of folks are having to escape out of windows. There are reports of people being trapped under rubble and search are just yelling for help and rescuers are scrambling to try to get to them as quickly as possible. George so it's quite dodgy right now and a fluid situation.
HOWELL: Elise, at the top of the hour, a reporter Evelyn Cheng told us about the weather situation there saying that it's very cold. So you mention those people who may still be trapped under that rubble. Is there concern just about getting to them as quickly as possible obviously given the weather situation there?
HU: Yeah, weather is a factor. I mean, Tainan is at the southern part of a very tropical island that isn't used to these sorts of bitterly cold temperatures. And so as you're seeing folks being rescued, the rescue workers are rushing to put blankets and heated electric blankets on the survivors as quickly as possible. Many are them are young children who are in their pajamas. Because again this happened in the early morning hours.
And so everybody was sort of awakened. If you've ever been in an earthquake, it's disorienting as it is to be in an earthquake, but this is doubling disorienting because folks were asleep. So to be awakened this way and then have your building go down must be terrifying. And rescue workers are getting there as fast as they can.
[05:35:00] HOWELL: Elise Hu live for us in Taipei, Taiwan. Elise, thank you so much for your insight on what is happening there.
HU: (Inaudible).
HOWELL: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Now switching to the Zika virus, Brazilian researchers say that that virus spread often by mosquitoes has been detected now in saliva and your urine. It says it poses new questions about how the virus might be transmitted. Health officials have reported cases of the virus beings passed via blood transfusions and sex.
Meanwhile health officials have launch a Zika awareness campaign during Rio's Carnival which is happening as planned. Brazil though is ground zero for this outbreak.
Our Shasta Darlington when to Rio's famed Copacabana beach. Where people are aware of the virus but are not too concerned about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Zika virus failing to cast a shadow on Carnival celebration here in Rio de Janeiro. More than a million people piling into this city, they are headed to the Sambodromo for the official parade to the block party and of course taking in a bit of sun. We managed to talk to a few of them about the virus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We brought our ticket in (inaudible) I must ahead a time. We're not going to like not come because of this thing.
DARLINGTON: OK, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels a lot worse when you're a home listening to it and when you're here, it doesn't seem as much of an issue like people are getting them the daily life.
DARLINGOTN: That doesn't mean officials haven't been taking precaution. They have been fumigating for the adult mosquitos that transmit the virus. They have been fumigating in the Sambodromo, another areas where tourists are gathering.
But the really important message has been broadcast on radio and in T.V. campaigns telling people how to kill the larvae of these mosquitoes, the known transmitters of the disease. These messages are going into peoples home about how they need to get rid of the standing water where the mosquitos breed.
And of course six months before the Olympics kick off, many people are viewing carnival as kind of a trial run to see whether or not people end up taking home not only these great memories of the carnival, but the Zika virus itself. Of course officials also say that when the games kick of in August, the weather will be entirely different will be in the southern hemisphere of winder and the mosquito population naturally dies off.
Shasta Darlington, CNN, Rio de Janeiro.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: So as the number of people infected with Zika rises, more attention is being focused now on the carrier of the disease.
Our Robyn Curnow takes a look at why the mosquito is the world's deadliest creature.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it's not the shark. Candidates knock the crocodile. Or even the snake. Humans kill nearly 500,000 other humans every year. But this tiny insect the mosquito, kills more than 700,000 people a year, making it the deadliest animal in the world.
There are more than 3,000 species of mosquito, most of them not deadly. But a few species are incredibly dangerous carriers of infectious disease.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Malaria is a terrible thing. There are hundreds of millions of people get it. It holds back economies. Kills over 600,000 children a year.
CURNOW: And it's not just made la malaria. Dengue fever kills more than 12,000 a year. Japanese encephalitis kills up to 21, 000 people and yellow fever kills 30,000 people a year. Those are just a few of the diseases caused by blood sucking mosquitoes, making them public enemy number one.
Robyn Curnow, CNN.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWELL: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
Still ahead, things are getting heated on the campaign trail ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Just days to go until voters pick their presidential nominee. We'll look at the polls coming up.
Plus, one of those candidates opened up this week about his faith. Bernie Sanders could be the first Jewish president. How people in Israel feel about that. Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:42:29] HOWELL: America's choice 2016 and the race for the White House where both Republican and Democratic candidates are stumping hard across New Hampshire in that final push for the Tuesday primary. Donald Trump he is leading in the polls, but his Republican rivals are not too far behind.
While on the Democratic side of things Bernie Sanders has a roughly 2 to 1 lead over Hillary Clinton.
CNN Tom Foreman checks out how the polls are shaping up.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Our latest daily tracking poll shows that Donald Trump is still leading the way in New Hampshire. He has 28 percent of the vote up there. Iowa does not seem to have hurt him, but it did help Marco Rubio. He's at 17 percent now solidly in second place whereas Ted Cruz and John Kasich are tied at 13 percent down here in third. It is important to note that since our previous poll both Trump and Cruz dropped a tiny bit and Kasich came up some.
And keep you eye on Kasich because out of all these candidates he has the lowest negative rating, which mean he may have the most head room to grow. Our margin of error here by the way is just under 6 percent. But take a look at this. When you talk about whether or not voters have decided, 30 percent are still undecided on the Republican side. 26 percent are just leaning. And only 45 percent are definitely decided on whom they're going to vote for. So a lot of maneuvering room for them there.
And on the Democratic side, very different picture. There you have only 16 percent still deciding. 20 percent leaning. And a whopping 64 percent committed at this point. That's good news if you're Bernie Sanders or his supporters out there because he has a 30 point lead over Hillary Clinton holding steady at 61 percent. She moved up one percentage point. Our margin of error is 5.5 percent . But even if that went her way in both cases high and low. She's still way, way behind in the Granite State.
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HOWELL: That was CNN Tom Foreman reporting there for us. And again, the state's primary will be held on Tuesday, February 9th. And you can catch all the very latest here on CNN. Clearly a lot of voters in New Hampshire like Bernie Sanders. And he could make history as the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential nominating contest.
Our Will Ripley asked some folks out shopping in Jerusalem. What they think about that?
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Jerusalem's biggest market Mahane Yehuda. You'll find a colorful cross section of Israeli,
Israeli American, tourists. And we're here talking about the American presidential race specifically Jewish candidate Bernie Sanders.
[05:45:06] Sanders, hasn't spoken much about his religious upbringing until this week.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT) DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would not be here tonight. I would not be running for president of the United States, if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings.
RIPLEY: he spoke with more than a dozen people and couldn't find a single person here who thinks having a Jewish-American president would necessarily benefit Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As far as being the first Jewish candidate, that doesn't necessarily -- it's a credential that means, you know, that means I think a whole lot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I look at credibility and I look record, I look at accomplishments. Ethnicity, not so much.
RIPLEY: Does having a candidate who is Jewish on the scale of importance, what would you say?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zero.
RIPLEY: Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because there are a lot of liberal Jews who do not always lean toward Israel. It won't do any good.
RIPLEY: To have a Jewish-American president, why is that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because it would only be a reason to be against us.
RIPLEY: So it's not important to you that it's a Jewish candidate, it's what they do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who care as long as money coming here. And they take care of us. The rest is nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... terrorist, for fighting ISIS, to fight this mob (ph) and we need someone who we can trust. And we need someone who's going to support Israel strongly. And I don't see that in Bernie Sanders.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: America needs us. And we need America. I want an American president that looks after this country no matter his view or ...
RIPLEY: Will Ripley, CNN, Jerusalem.
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HOWELL: So here's a question. What do you call it when Donald Trump throw a fit?
Well, one of his rivals has coined a new word, a Trumpertantrum.
CNN's Jeanne Moos reports on Trump's reaction when will he first heard it.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Donald likes to put his name on things but when Trump lashed out at the Cruz campaign after coming in second in Iowa ...
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, that voter fraud.
MOOS: It was Cruz who put Trump's name into a new word for tantrum.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDNETIAL CANDIDATE: Or if you like it, yet another Trumpertantrum.
MOOS: Trumpertantrum was an instant hit.
SHEPARD SMITH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: It's spelled T-R-U-M-P-E-R-T-A-N-T-R- U-M, Trumpertantrum. It is the word of the day.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And Trumpertantrum.
CRUZ: Yet another Trumpertantrum.
MOOS: #Trumpertantrum started to trend and attached to it were the usual assortment of doctored photos. Lots of crybabies, not to mention a creepy crybaby. Trump as Rambo, the silence of the Trumpertantrum.
A self-described guitar poet even sang a song.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trumpertantrum, Trumpertantrum.
MOOS: So, who actually dreamed up the word Trumpertantrum? Apparently, it was Cruz himself.
The Cruz campaign told CNN it was all Cruz, that's it just came to him.
Chris Christie, likewise, tried to coin a name for rival Marco Rubio whom Christie accuses of being scripted and controlled by handlers.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He kind of reminds me of the boy in the bubble.
Let's get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble.
We know who the boy in the bubble is up here.
SETH MEYERS, COMEDIAN: This comes from Christie, aka, the bubble.
MOOS: But did Donald Trump throw a tantrum when he heard this?
COOPER: He did say that you basically had a Trumpertantrum. Have you heard that phrase before?
TRUMP: No, I haven't actually. I love that phrase.
COOPER: You need to trademark that phrase.
TRUMP: I actually like that phrase. I'm going to trademark that.
MOOS: And if you ever feel a Trump inspired tantrum coming on, don't blow your top. Blow a Trumpet at the top of the Donald. A Swedish ad agency created this for fun. How do you say Trumpertantrum in Swedish?
Jeanne Moos, CNN ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trumpertantrum.
MOOS: -- New York.
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HOWELL: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Still ahead, we get a below decks tour of the largest container ship to dock in a U.S. port.
Stay with us.
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HOWELL: So this story is about the biggest container ship to ever dock in the United States and it's on its way from China. At just over 398 meters or 436 yards long, it would dwarf the Eiffel tower if stood on its end.
CNN's Matt Rivers is on board and gives us a tour.
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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So we just landed in the Chinese City of Xiamen and we're in a port here, this is one of the largest ports in the entire country and for the next of days we're going to be spending time on one of the world's largest ship, this is the Benjamin Franklin. It's one of the largest container ships in the world, so let's head up. So it is a little bit after 4:00 in the morning here in Xiamen as you can see right now we're shipping out -- pulling out of the port heading into the South China Sea getting pushed by some tug boats right now, next stop the port of Ningxia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Few minutes ago at noon a positional scale so we are just going along the China coast going for our next port Ningxia.
RIVERS: So right now we're in the after the ship, but may be what we can show you here is just how deep the ship goes, how tall the sides are it is dozens of meters tall in it's highest point.
Take a look at the containers over there they're stack one, two, three, four, five, six, seven high there and that is something we see across the ship, it really is unbelievable the scale of the operation on board here.
And this as you might imagine is the ships engine room, it is incredibly loud in here, but that make sense when you consider the size of this engine. It's roughly 80,000 horsepower and it uses about 200 tons worth of fuel every single day.
So this would be the part of the ship where you do your best Leonardo Dicaprio, Kate Winslet, king of the world impression, we're on the bow of the ship the very font of the ship. It is just enormous and frankly if you look over the side it's a little trippy feeling. You could see part of ship down there just slicing through the water underneath there.
[05:55:16] So after a couple of days on board all in all are very good experience, you know, people actually pay about 100 to 150 Euros a night to stay on cargo ships like this as a part of the vacation, my review not a bad idea as long as you don't mind to smell diesel a little bit along the way.
Matt Rivers, CNN, Ningxia.
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HOWELL: Matt Rivers, thanks very cool story.
OK, so a sea lion walks in to a restaurant. All right that might sound like the start of a joke, but it really did happen in Southern California. The staff at the aptly named Marine room said this sea lion that you see here, it came in on Thursday, it nabbed a booth and then gazed up surf.
Sadly though, the super cute pup was malnourished. It is now at Seaworld in San Diego, it's getting fattened up so she can hopefully be returned to the wild and make sure about it.
And we thank you for watching this hour.
I'm George Howell at the CNN center at Atlanta. For our viewers in the United States, "NEW DAY" with Christi Paul and Victor Blackwell it's next. And for others viewers around the world "AMANPOUR" starts in just a moment.
Thanks you for watching CNN, the world's news leader.
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[06:00:06] HOWELL: From CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. I'm George Howell. This is CNN NEWS NOW.
