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Pakistani Taliban Affiliate Claims Christians Targetted in Yesterday's Attack; More Counterterrorism Arrests in Europe; Sanders on a Roll in US Election Chase; Putin Congratulates Assad on Liberation of Palmyra; UNICEF Highlights Youngest Syrian Refugees; South China Sea Islands Dispute. Aired Midnight-1a ET

Aired March 28, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:10] ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN Newsroom, live from Los Angeles. An Easter Sunday bomb blast targets Christians in a public park in Lahore, Pakistan. Dozens are dead, mostly women and children.

New raids in Belgium, as riot police are called in to break-up rightwing protests in Brussels.

Plus, a CNN exclusive, the Abdeslam brothers, what their life was like before ISIS and the deadly Paris attacks.

Hello, and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world; I'm Isha Sesay. Newsroom L.A. starts right now.

A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban said it deliberately targeted Christians in a deadly suicide bombing on Easter Sunday. It happened in a crowded park in central Lahore, the explosion killed at least 67 people and wounded 300 others, in a horrific scene near a playground. Many women and children were among the victims. A spokesperson for the group said the attacks would continue.

Ravi Agrawal is following the developments and joins us now with the latest. Ravi, this was a horrific attack. As we just mentioned scores dead, hundreds injured. What more are we learning from the authorities about what happened?

RAVE AGRAWAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Isha. This is a horrific attack on Christians in Lahore, but also regular Pakistanis. This was an attack that took place on Sunday evening in a very large park, one of the city of Lahore's biggest parks.

Lahore is one of Pakistan's biggest cities, in the state of Punjab, which is the state that has 60-percent of Pakistan's population. This attack took place on Easter Sunday. The group that is claiming responsibility, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, which is a splinter group of sorts, of the Pakistani Taliban. They are saying that they did this attack, they conducted this attack, to attack, not just minorities but regular Pakistanis, to use it as a warning to Pakistan's Prime Minister, Nawar Sharif, and also his brother, Shabal Sharif, who is the Chief Minister of the state of Pakistan. This is a warning to say we can attack you in your stronghold, in the State of Punjab, in the City of Lahore, which are places that are not usually prone to the kinds of violence that we see in other parts of Pakistan.

SESAY: Ravi, what's been the government response to this claim of responsibility?

AGRAWAL: The government's immediate response was to express great sorrow and anguish, solidarity with the people of Pakistan, of course on Easter day but General Rahil Sharif, who is the main army general in Pakistan, he held an emergency meeting on Sunday evening, in Islamabad, to explore how they could hit back against these militants, to try and shore up security in the biggest cities, in Islamabad, in Lahore.

Remember, on the same day that this attack took place, there were wide scale protests in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and these protests were calling for the execution of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, and the reason why they were calling for the execution of this woman was because she allegedly blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammed. She is a Christian. This has been sort of a story that has been going on for many years now in Pakistan, where Christians are beginning to feel like they are being targeted.

So two incidents on Sunday. this protest in Islamabad and this deadly attack in the city of Lahore, really sort of jolting Pakistanis. As they're waking up on Monday morning, many people still beginning to look for survivors, trying to find out if their loved ones were impacted. So it's a very tense and tragic time for Pakistanis.

SESAY: Yes; a day of turbulence there in Pakistan. Ravi Agrawal with the very latest there; appreciate it. Thank you.

Let's bring in CNN's Intelligence and Security Analyst Bob Baer. He joins us now with the latest. Bob, as you know a Pakistani Taliban splinter group claiming responsibility for this attack. This group, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, does it sound plausible to you that they could have carried this out?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE & SECURITY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely. Let's not forget Isha that the Punjab is heavily radicalized. The government has been reluctant to go after these groups. There's hundreds of incidents to rise out of there, probably the most radicalized part of Pakistan, even compared to Karachi. So the fact they would strike Christians on Easter Sunday, didn't come as much of a surprise. The Christians are very, very tiny fraction of Pakistan's population. They're very vulnerable and these blasphemy laws have ended up targeting them.

[00:05:02] SESAY: Bob, you mentioned the government's reluctance to go after some of these groups, why is that?

BAER: Well Nawar Sharif, the Prime Minister, is from the Punjab. He operates out of there. These groups are very politically -- they're powerful and they have always been used for years against India, in this -- as proxies. So the Pakistanis have been unable to take on these radicalized groups. They don't support them, but on the other hand, they think it's crossing the line, which will damage them politically. I mean, I don't think this will change it any but we watch the Punjab.

SESAY: Yeah; we know that the government back in 2014 launched a defensive in North Waziristan to drive out the Pakistani Taliban and associated jihadist fighters. I mean, what did that achieve?

BAER: Well, that was after the attack on the army school. That was a little different. You don't get to attack the Army in Pakistan. They will take revenge for that. But, you know, getting in to those tribal areas, the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, they have never succeeded. I mean, the British failed. The Pakistani government has failed. They can go in punitive attacks, but at the end of the day those places remain fairly independent. and the Pakistani Taliban can operate at will there.

SESAY: All right; so we know that this group in particular, the one claiming responsibility, is threatening to strike again, again in the Punjab, they say. When you look at the state of Pakistan's intelligence apparatus and the counterterrorism network, their willingness to take the fight to these

groups, can they prevent further attacks?

BAER: No, Isha, they can't. I knew one of the guys who founded the Taliban in Afghanistan. He went up there to mediate and they executed him. He was a former ISI colonel. I mean, the Pakistanis, barely get off the roads up there and they attack centers that they recognize. But overall, they cannot occupy and tame the tribal areas; and they never will. What they can do against them is very limited.

SESAY: Bob Baer, joining us there with a bleak assessment of the situation on the ground in Pakistan and the fight against jihadist groups like the one claiming responsibility for the attack in Lahore. Bob, appreciate it; thank you.

BAER: Thank you.

SESAY: It seems like all of Europe is on edge after the horrific attacks in Brussels. Dutch anti-terror police arrested a man at the request of French authorities on Sunday. They caught him in Rotterdam on suspicion that he was part of a terror plot targeting France. He is expected to be extradited there soon. That arrest comes a day after Belgium authorities charged a man, who they're calling Fayal C., with terrorist murder. They aren't saying what role he night have played in Tuesday's attacks. Police carried out 13 raids around the capital Sunday and they're detaining four people from those operations.

Meanwhile, we saw ugly clashes at a peaceful rally Sunday. Hundreds of nationalist protesters scuffled with mourners at the huge makeshift memorial to the victims of Brussels attacks. They trampled flowers and mementoes as they shouted anti-immigrant slogans. Some were seen raising their arms in Nazi salutes. Riot police had to use water cannons to disburse the protesters, while others in the crowd chanted "No to Hatred". Ironically, a peace march was scheduled for the same site on Sunday, but it was canceled over security concerns.

Well the protests are indicative of two very different responses to terror. Our Phil Black witnessed that rift firsthand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL BLACK: This is what the Plaza de la Bourse has looked like since the days of the attack. Large, quiet crowds, honoring the victims, sometimes applauding respectfully. That changed Sunday, hundreds of men, dressed in black, with their faces covered invaded the square. "We're in our home" they cried. They surrounded the memorial site and rolling flags and banners, screaming together. These were right-wing nationalists. Loud, aggressive, intimidating, many drinking alcohol. Some others in the square, challenged the behavior. There were scuffles. Police struggled to

keep them apart.

We were broadcasting live when someone started letting off fireworks. Riot police moved forward, surrounding the crowd and slowly driving it out of the square. Another rival group began chanting, too, denouncing the men in black [00:10:01] as hateful racists, and cheering for the police as they advanced.

The police used a water canon once they were clear of square. It was all over in about an hour. The memorial was quiet again, but some people here were left even more upset because of what they had just seen.

Daniel Hollenbeck says his 19-year-old daughter lost two legs in the suicide blast at the Maalbeek Metro Station.

DANIEL HOLLENBECK, FATHER OF BOMBING VICTIM: You see this? that's not normal. My daughter, has half-legs.

BLACK: The atmosphere of quiet sorrow was shattered only briefly, enough to expose a powerful divide in how people here are responding to terror.

Phil Black, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well, before Brussels, it was the deadly terror in Paris that shocked the world. The name Abdeslam is notorious, forever tied to the bloodshed last November. CNN got an exclusive interview with two of the brothers former friends. They told our Nina dos Santos that the terrorists, know decried worldwide, barely resemble the men they once knew.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was life before ISIS. Salah Abdeslam and his Brother Brahim, partying at a high-end nightclub in Brussels. It's February 28, 2015, just eight months later, Brahim would blow himself at a Paris cafe. Salah becomes Europe's most wanted man.

Two of their friends shot the video in the club. They talked to CNN, on the condition we hide their identities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, via translator: Salah took care of himself. He was very neat; someone who was funny, who you could have a laugh with; a bit of a ladies' man. It was not unusual for him to have a drink or two but he didn't go out and get drunk. Brahim was a lot more intelligent; he was also better behaved.

DOS SANTOS: Haram and Rajid, speaking under assumed names, say that they first began hanging out with the Abdeslam brothers in 2011, when they took on the lease of this bar, Le Begin, which is now shut following a police raid. They say they came here to drink, to play cards, to smoke marijuana and also to watch the brothers' favorite football team, Real Madrid, play on the TV.

Things could get boisterous. Here, Brahim cheers on some drunken antics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I used to go there after work, to have a drink, have a laugh with friends, play cards. Anything that involves betting with money, really.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically you felt at home, among family.

DOS SANTOS: Also among that family, Hamza Attou and Mohammed and Abree, seen here in Raji's photos. They were detained after driving Salah back from Paris, following the attacks, and remain in custody. The friends say they were duped.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was with Hamza Attou, and around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., he received a phone call from Salah, asking him to come pick him up in France because his car had broken down.

DOS SANTOS: Not long after this party, they stopped drinking and became more religious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They prayed more, at the mosque, maybe only on Fridays. Otherwise, it was praying at home.

DOS SANTOS: Praying and plotting. No one, even their closest friends, knows why the Abdeslam brothers changed so much, so quickly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brahim got on with everyone. He didn't have problems with black, white, whatever race or religion.

DOS SANTOS: He didn't, until this.

Nina Dos Santos, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: All right; turning to Africa now, and a story we've long been following for you here at CNN. A would-be suicide bomber in Cameroon is claiming to be one of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls. She was one of three women stopped by the locals Friday. One escaped.

Boca Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 girls from the town of Chibok back in 2014. The Nigerian government will send a delegation to find out if the woman is, indeed, from that group. The delegation will include Chibok community members and parents of the missing girls. We'll continue to follow that story, very, very closely for you.

Coming up on CNN Newsroom L.A., Bernie Sanders wins big in three U.S. states. Ahead, how the presidential hopeful plans to keep the momentum going; next.

Plus, Donald Trump explains why he's uncharacteristically quiet about some parts of his foreign policy. Do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SESAY: Hello, everyone. Democratic U.S. Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders is on a roll in the wake of caucus wins across three states on Saturday. In Alaska, he swept up 82-percent of the vote. In Washington state, with 101 delegates at stake, he grabbed 73- percent. And, in Hawaii, Sanders came away with 69-percent of the vote. But the reality is, he still has an uphill fight to knock Hillary Clinton out of her front-runner status. Right now, she has more than 1,700 delegates, almost three-quarters of the number she needs to clinch the democratic nomination.

Well, the next big vote will be in Wisconsin on April 5th. Primaries for Republican and Democrats, and over the weekend, Donald Trump explained why he is staying quiet about certain specifics when it comes to foreign policy. He told "The New York Times" "a politician would say Oh, I would never go to war or I wouldn't go to war. I don't want say what I'd do because we need unpredictability. I wouldn't want them to know what my real thinking is."

I'm joined now by two men who are going to try to make sense of that statement for us. Dave Jacobs, democratic strategist and campaign consultant at Shallman Communications. Also here, John Thomas, a republican consultant and President of Thomas Partners Strategies. The "Two Wise Men", as they're [00:20:01] known around here. Gentlemen, let's put that wisdom to the test.

John Thomas, let's start with you. That was a wide-ranging and confounding interview that Donald Trump gave to "The New York Times."

JOHN THOMAS, PRESIDENT, THOMAS PARTNERS STRATEGIES: It was. It's basically Donald Trump taking his principles in "The Art of the Deal" and the "Celebrity Apprentice" and then taking it to be president of the United States. I mean, there's so much wrong with that statement. On the surface, it sounds interesting, saying, yeah, maybe we are getting a raw deal, and let's use our economic power to our benefit, but there's a lot of problems with that.

America is the peacekeeper in the world. We're the force of stability. We have to project stability. If we're saying if we can do anything, you can't count on us, our markets may crash. Businesses won't hope because they can't depend on this guy. Then, our foreign allies may not stay with us because they can't depend on the president.

SESAY: That's a good point. I mean, Dave, to bring you in, in reading the piece, and it appears all bets are off. So all those allies, the Saudi's Japan, South Korea, with Trump in the White House, all bets are off. I mean, what do you make of this?

DAVE JACOBSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIS, SHALLMAN GROUP: Look, he's all over the map. I mean, this is the sort of bluster and the bullying that we're seeing in the campaign translated into foreign policy and how he would project himself in president. I mean, this guy says one thing one day, and the complete opposite the next day. But I think overwhelmingly, he says he's not an isolationist in "The New York Times" today but the fact remains, he is. Just days -- 24 hours before the Brussels attack, he said he wanted to pull out of NATO. Then, the next day, one of our strongest allies has to deal with a devastating terrorist attack. So I think Donald Trump, at the end of the day, just can't be trusted. This guy says one thing and goes 180 degrees the next day.

THOMAS: But here's what's really interesting about what Donald Trump said, is that a lot of the electorate agrees with some of his premises, both on the left and the right. Donald Trump says we shouldn't have gone into Iraq. Democrats agree with that, too. Donald Trump says China is giving us a raw deal, economically. A lot of Americans believe that is. The problem is, his solutions are not good.

SESAY: What are the solutions, some would say and some would say also the weaknesses of his arguments haven't been exposed by his fellow republicans.

THOMAS: Right.

SESAY: I want to talk on, as we talk about Donald Trump and his mercurial ways. We also know this is a man also prone to lawsuits and there is another one he's threatening, this time against Ted Cruz. It all has to do with delegate share in Louisiana. John, explain this for our viewers.

THOMAS: Sure; it's not as complicated as it sounds. There were ten delegates that are ending up going to Ted Cruz -- ten more than Donald Trump got, even though Donald Trump won the majority of the vote. What happened was five of the delegates were Marco Rubio's delegates. Marco's not in the race, so those delegates are free. They decided to go to Ted Cruz; and five of the other were swing delegates, not declared delegates, and they decided to break for Cruz.

SESAY: Bottom line is, does he have a case here? Did Ted Cruz do anything wrong? Because he is saying, just to show how unfair Republican primary politics can be, I won the state of Louisiana, and get less delegates than Cruz, lawsuit coming. Really?

THOMAS: No; Donald Trump is doing what he needs to do and that is railing, saying the establishment has got it out for me. But this to me is a simple argument saying well I won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. The rules are the rules. It may not be right, but those are the rules.

JACOBSON: Well I think it also underscores the fact that Ted Cruz has a real robust ground game. That's why he won Iowa and Donald Trump didn't. I think in a lot of these states, choosing these delegates moving forward, you know, states may allocate delegates, but at the end of the day, if Donald Trump doesn't hit the 1237 threshold, there's going to be a round two, a round three of voting and a potential contested convention. Cruz is organizing folks to put people that support him, so round two, round three, if Trump doesn't hit that number, those folks are going to shift and go to Ted Cruz. So I think it really highlights the fact that you have to have an organization on the ground for all of these states.

THOMAS: This may be foreshadowing the convention.

JACOBSON: Right, great point.

SESAY: It probably is. Donald Trump, constant threat of lawsuits, the claims of I want to be unpredictable. You don't know whether I'm for you or against you. I mean, this all is playing out around the world. America's allies and enemies are watching all of this and Secretary of State, John Kerry, spoke to how it is playing around the world on one of the Sunday shows. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Everywhere I go, every leader I meet, they ask about what is happening in America; they cannot believe this. I think it is fair to say that they're shocked. They don't know where it's taking the United States of America. It upsets people's sense of equilibrium, about our steadiness, about our reliability, and to some

degree, I must say to you, some of the questions, the way they are posed to me, it's clear to me that what is happening is an embarrassment to our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Now, not to be explicit, he doesn't name Trump or - and he doesn't name Ted Cruz, but it's quite clear what he is inferring and where the statements are coming from. You talked about, and you both referenced the uncertainty all of this is causing.

[00:25:02] THOMAS: Right; let's be fair, Kerry is a partisan individual. He probably thinks all of the republicans, it doesn't matter who they are, they're all losers. So he's speaking to that, but remember, we're coming off of eight years of genuflector-in-chief. It's not like our current President is loved across the world because during a terrorist attack he's tangoing with somebody in Cuba. So I don't know that the Secretary of State, with all due respect -

SESAY: Cuba -- tangoing in Argentina. Dave, do you want to respond to that?

JACOBSON: There's no doubt that John Kerry is a Democrat. He was a 2004 presidential nominee for the democratic party but it is unprecedented, right - there's no denying it's unprecedented for a sitting U.S. Secretary of State to get into partisan politics. It's unbelievable that he would go to this level but I think it underscores the fact that this is a chaos electorate. This is a circus, essentially, on the GOP side.

Look, people are looking for stability, when it comes to foreign policy from America, and the comments that he released in "The New York Times" story, or what he talked about at "The Washington Post" the other way, I think really highlights the fact that people are scared; and a Donald Trump candidacy, frankly, is dangerous for America in the long haul.

SESAY: Dave, John, sorry we must leave it there this hour, but you will be back for round two, in the next hour. Thank you.

THOMAS: Sure.

SESAY: Thank you. All right; well, you can see the republican candidates discuss all of the big topics in this year's presidential race. CNN is holding a republican town hall with Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. You can watch it Wednesday at 1:00 a.m. in London; that's 8:00 a.m. if you're in Hong Kong.

Now, Syria has taken Palmyra in what it calls "a mortal blow to ISIS" and Russia says it would have been impossible without Moscow's support. Also coming up, they're not your typical bedtime stories. UNICEF is sharing the unfairy tales of Syria's youngest refugees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:30:19] ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching "CNN Newsroom" live from Los Angeles; I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour: a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban is claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least 67 people. People crowded outside a hospital in Lahore to find out about the hundreds of others that were wounded. The explosion happened when many Christian families were in a city park celebrating Easter.

Belgian authorities have charged a man they're calling Fayal C. with terrorist murder. They haven't specified his suspected role in the Brussels attacks that left 28 dead Tuesday. Police raids continue throughout the city, with several others currently detained.

Nationalist protesters scuffled with mourners at a memorial in Brussels for the victims of the terror attacks. Some carried a large Belgian flags while others raised their arms in Nazi salutes and shouted anti-immigrant slogans. Police eventually disbursed them using water cannons.

Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is congratulating Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on recapturing the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIS. Mr. Putin says Russian air support was key to the Syrian Army's success and that Moscow will continue supporting Damascus in fighting terrorists. The loss of Palmyra is considered one of the biggest setbacks for ISIS in Syria. Well, Pope Francis delivered his annual Easter message amid tight security in St. Peters Square on Sunday. He mentioned the attacks in Belgium and other parts of the world, urging people to use love to fight blind and brutal violence. The Pope also condemned those who failed to help migrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE FRANCIS, via translator: All too often these brothers and sisters of ours meet along the way with death, or, in any event, rejection by those who could offer them welcome and assistance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Well, UNICEF has created an animated series, "Unfairy Tales" to bring attention to the youngest victims of Syria's refugee crisis. In the first story of the series, "Malak and the Boat, A Journey from Syria," a 7-year-old makes a terrifying journey across the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life.

Joining me now, is Senior UNICEF Adviser, John Budd. John, thank you so much for joining us. Let me start by asking why use animations to tell the quite harrowing stories of migrant and refugee children?

JOHN BUDD, SENIOR ADVISOR, UNICEF: I think it's a new way of trying to reach a different audience but also, it looks at the voyages, the incredible journeys of these children, through a different light. The whole idea was that the company that came to us with this idea said, let's do it in the form of a fairy tale and I think, you know, that resonated, in terms of what these children had been through.

SESAY: As you talk about what these children have been through, just walk us through some of the stories you're telling, some of the specific points of these "Unfairy Tales" as you call them.

BUDD: Yes, the "Unfairy Tales" start off with a child, called Malak, who is 7 years of age and she, basically, has to flee from Syria and she gets in a boat and she is crossing from Turkey over into the Greek Islands. And basically, the story she told us, in an interview, was then translated into this extraordinary visual tale by the animation companies; and it showed, I think, it demonstrated the emotional aspects of this journey that sometimes you can't capture when you're just doing an interview. It is very clear that she came very close to death. It is very clear that she faced, you know, enormous horrors.

The other story, one of Evin, is the story of how this child had to escape from, you know, the bombing that was taking place in Syria, bombing that killed family. So, it was very, very difficult, in the first instance, to get out of Syria, with all of these terrible things happening to her. Then, we move, as she's making her way to Europe, and it looks extremely like something you would see as a child in a forest, where you're absolutely terrified and the journey doesn't seem like it will ever end. Finally, the mother says, we have to lie down and go to sleep.

[00:35:02] Of course, what we find is these journeys that these children are taking, it's not the end of the journey for them when they reach a destination; there, you find they have to start an entirely new journey.

SESAY: You know what's extraordinary as we put up the animations and shared them with our viewers, is the fact that what these children go through is heartbreaking, heart wrenching, it's incredibly difficult, and yet their plight, their suffering is often lost in the shuffle, as the issues of migrants and refugees becomes increasingly politicized.

BUDD: Yes, and it think that's one of the reasons why UNICEF decided that it should try and tell the stories of these children because what we found through research, is that if people in the destination countries, if they hear about how these children actually got here, if they hear about what they've been through, they're more open to accepting them. So, that's one of the reasons we started this campaign, which is called "Active Humanity," and we're basically asking people just to show small acts of humanity and kindness, towards refugee and migrant children and to remind ourselves that they're not refugee or migrant children; they are children. It doesn't matter where they came from. It doesn't matter what's happened to them. They are children and they need our support.

SESAY: This campaign aside, talk to me a little bit about the fieldwork your organization is doing. What you're doing to help the children in these various places.

BUDD: Yes; UNICEF's primary work with refugees and migrants are in the least developed countries. So, for example, for the Syrian crisis, most of our work is done in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, where there's 2 million refugee children currently in refugee camps. So all of our work is being focused principally in these areas; but the same can be said for refugee children in Afghanistan. Or, if you're in South Sudan, for example, you've got nearly 2 million children affected there affected, as well. So we're working with other U.N. agencies to support them.

In terms of what's happening with the Europeans, we set up an entire chain of what we call "Blue Hubs" all the way, from Greece, right through, up into, Austria, in order to support refugee families, as they made their journey to where they wanted to go. This is to provide, you know, protection for the children, to do reunification. So that's the sort of work we've been doing.

SESAY: John, it's very important work that you are doing. you and the other agencies. This campaign is a much-needed one to remind people that, you know, refugee, migrant, at the end of the day, they are just children. John Budd, thank you so much.

BUDD: Thank you.

SESAY: Time for a quick break. A power struggle is going on in the South China Sea over disputed territory. Well take you to one of the contested islands next on "CNN Newsroom" L.A.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:40:13] SESAY: Hello, everyone. We're getting an inside look at the growing power struggle in the disputed waters off of the South China Sea. Several different governments claim different parts of that body of water, including Taiwan, which just invited journalists to its tiny island. Our Ivan Watson was among those who visited.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The contested waters of the South China Sea, seen from a Taiwanese military plane; and this is what greets you when

you hand at Taiping, an island controlled by Taiwan.

Taiping is a tiny island. It basically runs the length of this runway. The Taiwanese government first laid claim to this place more than half a century ago, but this is the first time, the government says, that journalists have been invited to see it firsthand and it's at a time when tensions are ratcheting up here in the South China Sea.

At least six different countries have competing claims for this body of water, but China claims almost all of it; and to cement China's claim, Beijing has been building a series of manmade islands atop reefs and atolls in the hotly disputed Spratly Archipelago. It's making the neighbors nervous.

BRUCE LINGHU, FOREIGN MINISTER, TAIWAN: We are opposed to militarization or military expansionism in the area.

WATSON: Enter the U.S. Navy. We caught up with the aircraft carrier "John C. Stennis," shortly after it sailed through the South China Sea, performing an unmistakable show of U.S. force.

RONALD BOXALL, REAR ADMIRAL, U.S. NAVY: Just being there in the South China Sea shows that, you know, we believe we have the right to operate in international waters. All ships, not just military vessels, but civilian vessels.

WATSON: Washington calls these visits "freedom of navigation operations" and they clearly irritate the Chinese.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the Chinese Navy. This is the Chinese Navy. Please go away quickly.

WATSON: Last year CNN accompanied a U.S. Navy spy plane that flew over China's manmade islands. Beijing expressed outrage, issuing formal protests and calling these operations "a very serious provocation."

So, where do smaller claimants, like Taiwan, fit in? On Taiping, officials showed off the island's chickens and goats, as well as supplies of fresh water. If Taiwan proves Taiping can sustain human life, then the Taiwanese can make the case for a potentially lucrative 200 nautical mile economic exclusion zone around the island.

Amid the contest for control of the South China Sea, Taiwan is trying to demonstrate that it, too, is a player and should not be overlooked. Meanwhile, other small countries, like Vietnam and the Philippines, are reaching out to the U.S. for help at counterbalancing China as it continues to flex its naval muscle in this contested body of water.

A place that feels like a tropical paradise, is instead becoming part of a much bigger regional power struggle.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Taiping Island in the South China Sea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Some fascinating insight from there from Ivan. I'm Isha Sesay. "World Sport" is up next. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ("WORLD SPORT" AIRED)