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Canada Wildfires; North Korea's Top Political Meeting Gets Underway; Trump and Ryan to Meet Next Week; Pakistani Teen Drugged, Burned Alive; World Powers Trying to End Syrian Civil War; Rolling Blackouts as Venezuela Rations Power; Horse Racing Fans Fear up for Derby. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired May 06, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN HOST: Ahead at the INTERNATIONAL DESK: hundreds of cars are in a convoy to escape Canada's massive wildfire.

A horrible murder in Pakistan where a teenager is sedated and then burned alive.

And the top Republican in the U.S. Congress is not ready to support Donald Trump.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CURNOW: Hi, there, welcome. I'm Robyn Curnow at the CNN Center.

A desperate evacuation is under way right now in Western Canada's Alberta province. An estimated 1,500 cars are following a police escort to

flee dozens of wildfires on a route that will take them through the heart of their burned-out city.

Helicopters are flying overhead to spot fires up ahead. If everything goes well, the process is expected to last all day. CNN's Paul Vercammen

joins us now live from Alberta's capital of Edmonton, where many of those evacuees are expected to eventually arrive.

But, still this convoy, a massive evacuation.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Robyn. As you pointed out, some 1,500 vehicles in all. When they go through Fort McMurray, if

these people find that they no longer have a house, then they will come down here most likely to the evacuation center in Edmonton and spend the

night here. And the people we've talked to who are here right now, they are telling harrowing, harrowing tales of this massive inferno, this orange

monster of a fire.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): From the epicenter of the fire, one harrowing image after another, nearly an entire town engulfed in flames, residents

fleeing for their lives. This dashcam video shows a wall of smoke and flames just feet from the road. The remaining daylight consumed by smoke

as ash and embers rain onto drivers trying to flee the inferno.

Michel Chamberland (ph) was in the middle of it all.

MICHEL CHAMBERLAND (PH), WILDFIRE ESCAPEE: It's like driving through hell. Those flames, they were bright, they were big; the smoke, the

embers; try not to bump into anybody.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): From a distance, the wildfire looks like an imposing thunderstorm. From above, it's even worse. Billowing smoke made

the blaze tough to battle, forcing firefighters to move their command center overnight. Residents who left everything behind, now kept in

shelters hours from home.

JOANNE BATES, FORT MCMURRAY RESIDENT: It's not fair. They didn't even let us take our things when we asked. So we lost everything.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): The satellite image captures the wild scope of the fire and so do the grim statistics: 1,600 structures destroyed,

80,000 people evacuated, hundreds of square miles burned so far. Perhaps the only good news: no one has been killed.

DARBY ALLEN (PH), REGIONAL FIRE OFFICIAL: The people here are devastated. Everyone is devastated. The community is going to be

devastated.

VERCAMMEN (voice-over): The welcoming town of Fort McMurray, now urging everyone to stay away. With so much already lost, more than 1,000

firefighters are now trying to save what little remains.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VERCAMMEN: And they're battling almost 50 fires in Alberta and seven of them, Robyn, are still out of control.

CURNOW: Yes. Just so many people affected by this, losing everything they have. It's not over yet.

What are people telling you there in Edmonton, those who have made it to where you are?

VERCAMMEN: They're telling me it was absolutely frightening. And I think you just saw behind me another person passing with a bag. They are

coming in here, some of them, with just maybe one little suitcase full of clothes, a passport, a driver's license. That's all they could get.

They had some warning but not enough to get everything that they could, not enough to certainly, you know, pack up for days.

When a hurricane hits, Robyn, there's advance warning if you think about it. They know where it is, let's say, in the Western Caribbean; it's

moving towards the mainland.

But when you've got a fire that breaks out instantaneously like this and ravages a town, there's so little warning and that's why so many of

these people say they have next to nothing, one man telling me he lost both motorcycles, his car, his house and somehow he still kept a stiff upper lip

and was just going through the motions here at the center and spent the night on a cot.

Just heartbreaking to see that people lost everything in some instances.

CURNOW: Yes, it is. But there's also been a huge outreach, hasn't there, with communities really all pitching in to give something back to

those. Keep an eye on that convoy. We might come back to you. Paul Vercammen there in Edmonton, thanks so much.

I want to talk now more about the weather that's impacting these wildfires. It's key. Let's turn to Chad Myers, who joins me now live.

Hi, there, Chad.

I mean what's the outlook in the next few hours for this convoy but even going into the next few days?

[10:05:00]

(WEATHER REPORT)

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Now let me get to something that Paul touched on. And I thought it was an amazing observation. He said that the

fire looks like a thunderstorm. Well, in fact, what Paul was describing is called a pyrocumulus cloud.

Think about a cumulus cloud, the sunshine hits the ground and it makes puffy white clouds in the summertime. But if you have a raging wildfire,

all of a sudden, this air is going up rapidly, not like sunshine, this is 1,000-degree air, going straight up, creating clouds in the sky, creating

its own weather, creating a thunderstorm.

We call it a pyrocumulus cloud because the pyro of the fire, the cumulus because it's way up there in the sky and it's puffy and it does

look like a thunderstorm. But it creates more lightning, which would create, of course, more fires and it also creates wind when the storm dies.

And you take those embers and you blow them downwind and, all of a sudden, you also have more fires. It's such a dangerous place for a

firefighter to be when you have these pyrocumulus clouds that start to pop up in the sky. We watch for these all the time. Firefighters get out of

the way because they are dangerous -- Robyn.

CURNOW: Chad, you, obviously, give us an indication of the geography of where this is, the fact that it's pretty close to the Arctic Circle,

these unseasonably hot days and conditions.

Why is that?

MYERS: Well, we had this ridge of high pressure, Robyn. Let's go back to this graphic here. We had a very large ridge of high pressure that

came out, make a color that I can see. Came way up over British Columbia and then back down south here.

So there's your ridge. It looked like -- change my graphic on me -- all the way up here and back down here.

This heat went all the way up into Central and Northern Canada. Also, something that happens and this happens in the Alps, this happens even in

India, when you get winds coming down the high elevation, you have the Canadian Rockies right through here, the air came downs the Rockies and

heats up. So it goes from teens and 20s and that day on Monday all the way to the 30s.

That beat the old record, Robyn, by 5 degrees Celsius, not just breaking it, it shattered the record. That's how hot it was.

CURNOW: OK. Keep an eye on those conditions and also the convoy and we'll come back to you for any more updates. Thank you so much.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CURNOW: North Korea has kicked off its first political congress in decades, it's been strictly behind closed doors but we're finally getting

some new video, some images from this meeting. Our Will Ripley is monitoring this all in Pyongyang; he joins us now.

Hi, there, Will.

What's the time now?

I think it's nearly midnight and this is the first indication of what's been happening inside that congress, isn't it?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is more than 11 hours since the congress kicked off this morning.

And I have to say, after kind of feeling -- quite tired much of the day, as we sat around waiting, watching two newscasts, where there was no

mention of the Workers Party Congress, I'm now wide awake because I have something to talk about.

And while there wasn't a major announcement yet, what we did get just moments ago, really, was our first indication of what is going to happen

over the coming days here in Pyongyang.

On the stage there, you saw the three most powerful men in North Korea. Everybody recognizes the face of the current supreme leader, Kim

Jong-un, who came to power in December of 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il; but to the left of him, another familiar face, Kim

Jong-nam. He's 88 years old and he has essentially served as the international face of North Korea since 1978. So he served under all three

of the leaders in the Kim family.

He would be representing the old school, if you will. And then to the right of Kim Jong-un is Hyon Yong Chol, who was promoted in 2013. He is

the second highest military official under Kim Jong-un.

[10:10:00]

RIPLEY: He would represent the new school of leadership. And what you heard was a 15-minute introductory speech from the leader, Kim Jong-un,

who he acknowledged a number of officials who have died over the years; he paid tribute to his father and his grandfather.

And then there was an indication of what is going to be on the agenda in the coming days. He will give -- the leader will give his main report.

The disciplinary committee will give their report.

Now this is the committee that, among other things, was responsible for a series of reported purges of the inner circle, people who were

accused of disloyalty, called in a state media article yesterday, "evil forces" within North Korea.

So we will hear what the disciplinary committee has to say about that and other party issues. They're going to talk about revising some of the

party statutes. They're going to elect the supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, to the highest possible level of the Workers Party of Korea. So this is a big

deal.

We've been saying for a while now that Kim Jong-un would consolidate his power and become even more powerful than he already is. That is going

to happen. We now have confirmed.

And then he also, there will be the election of the new Workers Party of Korea leadership body. These are the people that we suspect and that we

believe have been handpicked by the new leader after the shake-up of the top of the elite.

These are the people that he is going to put before the country, put before 3,400 Workers Party members, who are in attendance. That's a new

number that we just heard from the state announcement.

And then they're going to move forward with their plan to try to develop this country's economy and, at the same time, aggressively grow its

nuclear arsenal as well -- Robyn.

CURNOW: This hasn't been done since 1980.

Why is this leader choosing to put on this type of political show here?

There's a lot of robotic choreography. You've kind of laid out what the agenda is.

But is there more?

RIPLEY: Well, there's, obviously, been turmoil within the party. When you think about North Korean society and you think about the fact that

seniority and hierarchy is something that is looked upon with -- you know, it's rewarded, essentially.

And when you had Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il, he was in the public eye for 20 years from the time that he was named the successor of

the president and founder, Kim Il-sung in 1980 to the time that he actually took control of the country.

So by the time he became this supreme leader, people knew him, they were very familiar with him. Kim Jong-un was only presented to the North

Korean people one year before his father died unexpectedly in late 2011.

And so the country has, over the last several years, had to get to know him, somebody who went from being unknown to being the leader of their

country. And as you might imagine, there were people within the party who did not, perhaps, believe that he should be the person running a country of

24 million people, a young man in his early 30s.

And those people, many of them are now longer in Pyongyang; whether they were executed, whether they were sent to labor camps, we don't know

what happened to many of them. But they're certainly not appearing in that room. And they're not going to be standing on the stage as the new

generation of party leadership.

CURNOW: Yes. Fascinating video, fascinating insight there from Pyongyang. Will Ripley, thanks so much for joining me. I'm glad you're

awake now.

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CURNOW: He's the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. But Donald Trump's move to unite the party is not going to be easy.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, the most powerful Republican in Congress, said Thursday that he's not ready to support Trump. And other

establishment figures are planning to skip the party convention in July. Phil Mattingly joins me from CNN New York.

Hi, there, Phil. We've just been talking about North Korea and the political theater there. But there's also some pretty dramatic political

theater playing out within the Republican Party.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not literally life and death, like maybe it is in North Korea. But what's going on in the Republican Party

right now is serious and unprecedented.

You have the top elected official in the party, basically breaking from the presumptive nominee. In the middle sits the Republican National

Committee, trying to broker a peace but also recognizing, Robyn, that there is a long road to go before Donald Trump and the Republicans that are very

concerned about his candidacy can get back together.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REINCE PRIEBUS, CHAIRMAN, RNC: They're both committed to sitting down and working -- and actually talking this out.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): RNC chairman Reince Priebus in the middle of the fight to unite, confirming that Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul

Ryan will meet face to face next week.

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: I'm just not ready to do that.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Only hours after Ryan told CNN's Jake Tapper that he's not ready to back Trump.

PRIEBUS: And what he's saying is, look, I want to get there. I think I will get there. But I want to talk to Donald Trump and I want to work

with him.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Priebus, trying to explain why Ryan and some --

[10:15:00]

MATTINGLY (voice-over): -- in the Republican Party are so reluctant to back their new standard bearer.

PRIEBUS: For some people, an endorsement is a full embrace. And so for some people it takes a little bit of time to get to a full embrace.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): The chairman, not promising 100 percent of the party will fall in line but optimistic that there won't be a contested

convention come July.

PRIEBUS: The platform of our party will be written in Cleveland and I think you're going to get another very conservative platform out of our

party.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): But not so fast. Trump firing back at Ryan in a statement, saying, quote, "I'm not ready to support Speaker Ryan's

agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people."

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know that thing, Never Trump?

You know why it's never Trump?

Because I'm going to stop the gravy train for all these consultants and all of these people.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): Ryan making clear that his focus is on one thing: protecting the party's House majority, something some analysts

predict could be in jeopardy with a Trump nomination.

RYAN: My focus this fall is, has been and will be the House majority.

MATTINGLY (voice-over): And warning the fight for unity rests mostly on the shoulders of the nominee.

RYAN: I think what is necessary to make this work, for this to unify, is to actually take our principles and advance them. And that's what we

want to see; saying we're unified doesn't in and of itself unify us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, Robyn, the meeting that both Donald Trump and Paul Ryan have been talking about is slated to occur next week, according to

advisors with both men. And that's a really important meeting. It will start the process going forward.

But one of the biggest questions here is, there are a number of issues Paul Ryan has with Donald Trump's candidacy, with the campaign that he's

run. There's obviously the tone, which Ryan has disagreed with; there are certain policy issues like the limited ban on Muslims from entering the

United States, that Paul Ryan has openly decried.

But Paul Ryan's agenda, an agenda that all House Republicans have gotten behind, an agenda many have won their elections on, have run

elections on, the staple of Paul Ryan's entire career in Congress is completely divergent from the policy proposals that Donald Trump has put

out, whether you're talking about entitlements, whether you're talking about trade deals, whether you're talking about tax policy.

And I think that's the biggest issue right now, where if they're sitting in a room, how does Donald Trump backtrack on his policies that are

so completely different from Paul Ryan's policies?

How do they ever find a middle ground?

And I think that is the open question right now and it's one that one meeting will not solve. We're going to be seeing a lot of this over the

next couple weeks.

CURNOW: Yes. Interestingly and you also note about tone, Paul Ryan saying in that interview, that exclusive interview, that Mr. Trump is now a

standard bearer who kind of needs to bear some standards, as you say. This is a conversation that's going to keep on going. Fasten our seat belts.

Thanks so much.

Coming up here at the INTERNATIONAL DESK: murder by any other name. Family members are arrested in the burning death of a teenage girl in

Pakistan. We'll talk about that next.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CURNOW: To Pakistan now, where a 16-year-old girl has been brutally killed. It's part of a pattern of so-called "honor killings" in Pakistan.

But CNN has decided not to use the phrase "honor killing," because it's difficult really to imagine anything more dishonorable than this.

We have some -- and we have to warn you that some of the video and details we're about to share are disturbing but it's important to tell this

story.

We know a teenager was drugged and then burned alive inside a van in a village outside Islamabad. The killing was ordered by a tribal council,

all because the girl allegedly helped a neighbor and her boyfriend to elope. Police have arrested more than a dozen people, including the girl's

mother.

I'm joined now from our bureau in Islamabad, Farzana Bari. She's the director of the Gender Study Center at a university there as well as a

human rights activist.

Thank you so much for joining us. And I think this case making very clear these killings are premeditated; the fact that this girl -- her name

was Ambreen -- was sedated, an indication of the premeditated and cold- blooded nature of this crime.

FARZANA BARI, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Yes. Surely, I think most of the time these are premeditated murders. And I think, unfortunately,

there's a complete failure of the state and the society in these cases because one thing is that there is a whole -- I think the culture of

impunity surrounded these, you know, the crimes of so-called honor.

I think you're right, you said these are the -- these are the crimes, there's no honor in killing. So basically, I feel despite that the state,

despite that, that these tribal councils are declared as unconstitutional in Pakistan.

But every day, there are these, in every areas we see these tribal councils are held because people do not have access to justice, criminal

justice systems. It's completely not working very effectively.

And people are basically at the local level. They go to these tribal councils for their issues and these kind of scenes, which are often common,

that's not the first time when that kind of heinous crime is committed against the women on the order of a tribal council.

CURNOW: You said it's carried out with impunity in the last hour or so. The prime minister has put out a statement. I just want to bring that

up on screen. And he's called this "a barbaric act, inhuman," that this is not an honor killing but plain murder. He says criminals should be

prosecuted swiftly. It's a bold statement.

But will criminals be prosecuted swiftly?

BARI: I think it hasn't been done so far. As I said, I think there is hardly -- it's a very minimum connection written in the case of crimes

against women. He has made this statement.

But as you know, still in Pakistan, the law and the honor killing has been gone into the cold storage. They have not really taken a decision on

that and we are still waiting for that. So I don't think -- I mean, women's issues are taking a priority as per the government of Pakistan is

concerned, which is very, very disappointing.

CURNOW: It's the sheer scale of this that has people overwhelmed, angry, as they listen to these stories. One thousand women were killed by

relatives in Pakistan just in the last year in (INAUDIBLE). That's about three girls or women a day.

Their deaths are gruesome; nearly 150 were set on fire or attacked with acid. And, in the past decade, nearly 9,000 have been killed.

I mean, and also, activists are saying these kinds of numbers could be higher. This could be far more widespread.

BARI: Absolutely. I think this is the tip of the iceberg because a lot of these numbers are coming out of the reported cases. So I think if

you look at the scale of the problem, actually, we don't know. And I know it's far greater.

And the thing is that the kind of crime which is committed, I think that the nature of patriarchy in Pakistan, which is very much tribal and

feudal in nature and that's why -- and the way the women are seen still as a property of a man, as they belong to their men, there is notion of man's

honor somehow resides in women's bodies. So women's bodies and mobility is controlled, according to the local custom and culture. And anybody

(INAUDIBLE) tries to transcend and then they have to be punished, meet punishment like that --

[10:25:00]

BARI: -- and it's often women who are meeting these --

(CROSSTALK)

CURNOW: That's what I was going to say to you. This girl's mother has been arrested as well.

BARI: Yes. But I think often, unfortunately, a lot of times women and mothers also go along when the scene is taken at the community level

because, as I said, it is then linked with this whole notion of honor and all that which people have internalized.

And I think because this is also because essentially it's a society of illiterate. We still have a very low literacy rate in Pakistan, we have

very strong tribal and feudal power integrations. Our state is hardly there. The criminal justice system is completely not working in favor of

poor in general and women in particular.

And as a result of that, people are like, obviously, when our courts are not working very effectively and people are not able to access justice,

so this are the local parallel judicial system, which are not only very male-dominated, it's dominated by the men from elite background and with

particularly men and the local cultures, which are very patriarchal.

So it keep on -- the kind of -- the scene comes, it reinforces this male domination and patriarchal misogynist local cultures. And state is

not there to punish. And, as a result of that, I feel, because of this culture of impunity, we feel this criminal mindset is basically just, you

know, free.

And cases against women are definitely rising. I don't think it is only report because violence in general in our society, unfortunately, is

on the rise and I think the violence against women is also rising.

However, we have not, as a nation -- also our government has not developed a system, whereby systematically we -- the number of violence

against women, number can be thrown out, you know, through a systematic manner and we know what is the scale of the problem. And we need to

address that.

And I said even legally we are not able to address a lot of crimes, particularly the domestic violence crime has not been declared as a crime

in Pakistan as yet with the exception of one or two provinces, where the law on domestic violence has been passed.

But we are still waiting; for example, there's no law in Punjab or in Islamabad. So even the legal protection is not there, let alone in terms

of when people are, you know, violated, women are violated, getting justice, you know. I think that's the next step. We haven't even taken

the first step.

(CROSSTALK)

CURNOW: Justice still very much not there for these young girls and women, as we said over 1,000 honor killings.

BARI: Exactly.

CURNOW: So-called honor killings in the last year.

Thank you so much for joining us, Farzana Bari, a very important issue. We have much more on that on cnn.com.

There will be much more news after this short break. You're watching CNN.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]

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CURNOW: Welcome to the INTERNATIONAL DESK. I'm Robyn Curnow. Thanks for joining me. Here's a check of the headlines.

(HEADLINES)

CURNOW: There's been more fighting near the city of Aleppo. A Syrian activist group says the violence has left 73 people dead. It was a battle

between Syrian government forces and Al Qaeda's Al-Nusra Front, which is not party to the cessation of hostilities now in place.

Activists say most of those killed were Nusra fighters. The rest were Syrian troops.

Thursday's airstrikes on a displaced civilian camp in Idlib province is drawing international condemnation but so far only denials of

responsibility from Syria and Russia. We know at least 28 people were killed in that attack. Our Jomana Karadsheh has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've escaped those homes but in Syria there's no escaping the violence. The anguished

screams of women and children in this makeshift camp in Idlib province near the Turkish border bombed on Thursday.

The United Nations says the attack could be a war crime. No one knows who did it or why. Reports say it was unidentified jets that dropped the

bombs that claimed the lives of dozens of refugees, many of them women and children.

But for these Syrians, trying to pick up what's left of their devastated lives in this camp, they blame the regime and its allies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): They are all killers. Bashar al- Assad, Iran and Russia, all are killers.

See here?

There are no young men here. All are women and children. There is not a single one over 12 years old.

They are all killers. This is Hassan the Satan, not Hassan Nasrallah.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Syria has denied targeting the camp.

On that same day, about 250 kilometers away, it was a surreal scene, a different reality. The Russian orchestra performing in the ancient Roman

city of Palmyra, touting the Russian and Syrian victory there recently after pushing ISIS out.

The U.S. said there was no justifiable excuse for the attack on the camp in Idlib, which came a week after the bombing of a field hospital in

Aleppo that killed 50 people. That attack, an escalating bloodshed in Syria's second largest city, shifted the world's focus back to the

conflict; world powers rushed to try and salvage the crumbling cessation of hostilities agreement.

An American- and Russian-brokered 48-hour truce between regime and opposition forces in Aleppo went into effect on Thursday.

With ISIS and other extremist groups not part of any negotiations, it was during that cease-fire that Al Qaeda's affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra,

grabbed several towns and villages south of Aleppo from the regime. Dozens of militants and regime forces killed in the fight.

For the civilians in Syria, with shaky cease-fires in this complex and grinding war, nowhere is safe -- Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Amman.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Venezuela's oil reserves once made it one of the richest countries in Latin America. But now the economy is on the verge of

collapse. Basic goods are scarce or nonexistent and rolling blackouts are making life even more miserable for ordinary Venezuelans. Paula Newton has

more from Caracas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For months now in Venezuela they've been rationing basics. People line up for hours just for

food. Hospitals are rationing medicines and supplies and now everywhere, except in the capital Caracas, the energy superpower is rationing

electricity, too.

We travelled to the industrial heartland in the city of Valencia (ph), where scheduled blackouts are the new --

[10:35:00]

NEWTON (voice-over): -- reality. From bakeries to small businesses to families, no one is escaping a daily dose of power rationing.

Julio Perez (ph) walks us through his blacked-out bakery. Every day for at least four hours, the power is cut, he complains, and his business

takes a hit.

"Besides not having supplies," he tells me, "now I have to deal with the power rationing."

He says the already precious products he has are at risk of spoiling. He can't make coffee for customers, can't tell them when he will have

bread.

"It's the same for salon owner, Alison Vandez (ph), no power. No customers."

City counselor Manuel Molina (ph) walks us through what was a busy business area, now nearly shuttered.

NEWTON: What's the situation right now in Valencia?

How critical is it?

"The situation in our country and our city is critical right now," he's explaining.

"We have seen 30 percent of our businesses close."

Molina (ph) blames the government mismanagement for the crisis but the Venezuelan government calls this a natural disaster. El Nino, it says, has

deprived the Guri Dam of water and it produces most of Venezuela's electricity.

Gladys Ocai (ph) isn't buying any of it.

"My blender is broken. My refrigerator is broken," and she walks me over to show me.

"I have meat in here and, you can imagine, this goes bad. I have to keep it closed."

"El Nino" she says, "forget El Nino."

She, too, blames the government.

No matter who is to blame, there is no quick solution and it's taking a toll on communities and families. The Ocais (ph) never thought life

could get tougher. Now every day when the lights go out, they know it will.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thanks to Paula for that report.

Still to come here at the INTERNATIONAL DESK, the organizers of an online poll to name a $300 million research ship have rejected the winning

name.

And, boy, oh, boy, is it a name.

What will it be called instead?

All will be revealed -- next.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CURNOW: Now to the Vatican, where European leaders have awarded Pope Francis the International Charlemagne Prize. It's to recognize the pope's

efforts to promote European unity amid the ongoing migrant crisis.

In his comments, Francis called Europe "weary," but said it still had the energy and opportunity to change. He urged the continent not to see

migrants as criminals.

Well, I call it darby but my American colleagues in the newsroom say it's derby. Either way, unpack your hats and get ready for some mint

juleps. The Kentucky Darby/Derby is this Saturday and it's an iconic horse race, known as the most exciting two minutes in sport. So the announcers -

-

[10:40:00]

CURNOW: -- have to get it just right. Our Richard Roth gave it a shot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

KEN WARKENTIN, FREEHOLD RACEWAY ANNOUNCER: Huxley is up fast. We have So Bad Im Good. The Bad Deputy gets away aloofly from the inside and

he will settle in.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: I'm calling today's fourth race.

What should I know?

WARKENTIN: You need accuracy and clarity. You need control. You can't get too excited. And you should use the binoculars.

ROTH: How upset could you get if a race caller makes a mistake?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, very upset.

ROTH: Because I might make a mistake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not going to make a mistake. I've got full confidence in you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a half-mile track, you'll find, if you stick with the one, two, three and four, you'll probably do pretty good. Just

stick with those numbers.

ROTH: I wasn't good in math, though, in school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, OK, so we'll go with the six, seven and eight then.

ROTH: During testing, I called a horse Paystobea Mean Girl. And we later learned it was PaystobeaMeangirl.

It's Paystobea Mean Girl in front.

Is that embarrassing?

WARKENTIN: Yes. That is embarrassing.

ROTH: Is it proper for a race announcer to make a bet on the race he's calling?

WARKENTIN: It's an unbiased approach to the business. You might be concentrating too much on that horse that you bet.

ROTH: $2 across on the five.

Five, Rockrockwhosthere; number six, OK Cognac; number seven, Real Mystical and number eight, Magnum Mike.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My great pleasure to introduce Richard Roth.

Don't mess up, Richard.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

ROTH: The fourth race at Freehold, seconds away.

Many people don't know Wolf Blitzer was a driver once. Finished 14th in the Preakness.

Breaking news, this fourth race is under way. Rockrockwhosthere, going for the early lead in the middle of the track.

Cheyenne Patti, though, along the rail, gets the lead.

Grabbing the lead, Rockrockwhosthere, along the back stretch.

Comfortably in the pocket second, Cheyenne Patti. It's Factor J. A little bit of an error there. We have Cheyenne Sportsman four. And that's

OK Cognac coming out third.

Knock, knock Rockrock. Going to drive me crazy, Rockrockwhosthere, pulling away.

Magnum Mike, third, making a move.

We have got Rockrockwhosthere, in front in the fourth at Freehold.

Give me it straight.

How bad or good?

WARKENTIN: Well, you have to be a -- you had to go through the field. You know, there were some horses that you really had -- didn't give a call

to at all.

I'll give you a B.

ROTH: Yes.

You heard my screw-up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the middle, but you recovered quickly.

ROTH: Do I have a future?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. But that's beside the point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Well, I thought Richard rocked there.

I want to tell you some bad news for fans of Boaty McBoatface. That name was selected over thousands of other choices in an online vote to make

a name for a new British research vessel. It earned more than 120,000 votes last month. A lot of people felt passionately about that.

But now the U.K.'s Natural Environment Research Council has rejected the name. Instead it's opting to name the ship after Sir Richard

Attenborough, a legendary British broadcaster, who inspired a love of nature.

For Boaty fans, there is something, though, to hang onto. A remotely controlled sub kept on the ship will be called Boaty McBoatface. But it

doesn't make a lot of sense, does it, which is why there's really an online movement to change the name to Subby McSubface.

That does it for us here at the INTERNATIONAL DESK. I'm Robyn Curnow. Thanks for joining me. "WORLD SPORT" with Christina Macfarlane is up next.

END