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Canadian Wildfire Doubles In Size; Kenya Announces Plans To Close Refugee Camps; Donald Trump Gearing Up For Two Contests. Aired 3-3:30a ET

Aired May 08, 2016 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:09] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: And already ferocious wild fire in Canada doubled in size in just 24 hours. We'll explain why there's a lot more damage to come.

Kenya announces plans to close all of this refugee camp including the largest in the world. We'll go live to Nairobi for that story.

And Donald Trump takes on not one but two contest, he looks ahead to November U.S. election.

You follow ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, thank you for joining us. We're live in Atlanta Georgia, I'm Natalie Allen.

Western Canada devastating wild fire shows no sign for slowing down as it nears a neighboring province. Alberta government official say the Fort McMurray fire cover some 2,000 square kilometers or about twice the shape of Hong Kong. More than 500 fire fighters are battling the flames.

These photos from the International Space Station show just how big the fire has become since starting less than one week ago.

When expanding the flames to the northeast they could still reach neighboring Saskatchewan province. Our Dan Simon has been following development from Fort McMurray.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can see some of that thick smoke behind me, this fire is still very much out of control and you still have so many people who are evacuated nearly 90,000 people evacuated, that is unprecedented situation here in Canada in terms of the weather, it's pretty hot today, the conditions remain dry, it can be windy.

So terrible conditions for fighting this fire, there is a chance that there could be rain in the forecast tomorrow, so that would be welcome news. But even if it does rain, this fire is going to go on for some time, perhaps, several weeks in terms of the damage, the numbers are staggering 1,600 homes and business is destroyed, most of that destruction in the Fort McMurray community.

All the people who have been evacuated, a lot of them are staying at shelters of course, many also staying with relatives but if that's not an option, if you can't stay we'd say friend or family member, perhaps you're going to a hotel. But it's pretty much impossible to find a hotel room in the area. Of course, people are anxious they want to know if they have a home to go back to. And right now they're just dealing with it now. They're trying to get the essentials in place food, shelter and water as this fire continues in Canada.

Dan Simon, CNN, Fort McMurray, Canada.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: And that road you just saw is the only highway to get into the town and out, so that is why it's causing so much for a long time for the people to evacuate 90,000 of them.

And earlier, CNN spoke with the wild land fire professor at the University of Alberta. He said this fire could burn until winter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are deep organic layers what we call pit bags and they can burn on the ground and smolder all the way through winter and then pop up next spring. That's not on hurdle, it happens all the time, so this is a huge fire. It's now moving away from the city and values, it's moving into the boreal forest where, you know, boil forest survives and thrives inn high intensity fire.

So what happens is you have trees, they burn, you get a new forest, they burn it's just eh cycle of life in the boreal forest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: That's a positive note there, it's still not clear what caused this massive fire, but the expert you just heard from, it says climate change could bring similar fires in the future.

Let's get the latest now on the fire conditions, our meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now with that and, you know, the thing that really gets me is when we say it's burned in area equal to two Hong Kong.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN WEATHER ANCHOR: Yeah.

ALLEN: That is a lot.

VAN DAM: It's incredible we've done other calculations. I mean there's so many comparisons, that it just tries to put thing in perspective for people, how big is this fire? Well I mean you can see it from the International Space Station not said a lot in its own, right.

And then pretty one living in some of the major cities like Hong Kong or Singapore even into Houston and Los Angeles, I mean these are all comparable to those cities landscapes.

Let's get to my graphics and you'll see one of the calculations that I just did. And by the way Natalie, this is turning out to be Canada's most expensive natural disaster, it's got all the ingredients for an extremely dangerous fire weather scenario obviously, but it's still likely to continue.

Here's the calculations I just did. This has the approximate square kilometers of Boston, Chicago and Houston all added up, that's roughly or comparable to the size or the magnitude of this fire in Alberta.

[03:05:12] Now, starting to border of Saskatchewan, I mean look this is the Elitch International Space Station, unbelievable, very remarkable. And by the way, this smoke is catching the Jet Stream, the upper level winds, it's filtered as far south of Atlanta Georgia, we actually saw the smoke and the heist over head of the CNN headquarters here yesterday at this time.

Now, this is a look at the air quality index from Bismarck North Dakota through Minneapolis Minnesota in the United States and that continues to lower the air quality index across the upper midwest in the USA of course, that's the least of the concerns at the moment I mean just take a look at this areal image, by the way this is interstate or Highway 63 leading north and south out of Fort McMurray, remember they had that convoy of over 2.5 thousand vehicles trying to evacuate Fort McMurray.

That is this particular highway you can see in that line on this Google earth map. What you're looking at here is all the individual hotspots that have flared up over the past six days, the red being the most recent within the past three to six hours in fact you could see how that spread to the south, the east and even to the north of Fort McMurray as well.

Fire conditions are going to improve going forward over the next 24 to 48 hours, you can see in this map it starts to suppress to the -- further to the south, but that doesn't diminish the threat that's going on here, it's still extremely critical across this area. Looking the tab just dropping off from today until Monday, so some good news at least, for the firefighters, combating that situation.

I want to end with this, spectacular tornado footage coming out of Northeastern Colorado, we can role the footage. This is a rope tornado just north of Wray Colorado. This spectacular unfortunately, there were five injuries, Natalie. But the destruction and injuries aside, I mean looking at this thing is just incredible, spectacular sight to see, Northeast Colorado lies on a high planes of the United States, so it allows for this expensive, very sparsely populated area, so very ideal conditions for tornado chasers to go out and get shots just like this.

ALLEN: Yeah. It looks scary but it looks beautiful.

VAN DAM: Scary but beautiful, that's right.

ALLEN: Thanks Derek.

Well, we turn now to North Korea were leader Kim Jong-un says he won't use nuclear weapons unless the country's sovereignty is threatened. State media reported he made the comment of the countries ruling elite at North Korea's first ruling party Congress in decades.

He emphasize that North Korea will be a responsible nuclear power and even contribute to the non-proliferation effort.

Kim's comment mark a bit of a turn in the countries rhetoric with respect to the nuclear program, they're also among the first announcements to come out of the historic Congress underway in their capital Pyongyang. Very few details have emerged from the close door meeting so for -- so far, excuse me. But Will Ripley is there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Given that North Korea has a reputation for being one of the most secretive countries on earth, that shouldn't come of any surprise that the political process here is also veiled in a real lack of transparency to say the least.

The past two days of this historic workers party Congress, the first in 36 years, we know that it's been happening in the April 2015.

People's house of culture in Pyongyang are building that we are not allowed anywhere close to aside from on the first day we took some pictures from across the street, we've been taking on sight seeing towards and turn around the city while the work of the party Congress has been happening behind close doors.

And each evening now around 10:00 at night there's been a surprise news broadcast an unannounced broadcast for claiming to the people what has happened at the party's Congress at that day. It's only about 30 minutes long.

Today, we were told that the supreme leader Kim Jong-un gave a policy speech although the narrator didn't specify which policy he talked about other than to say that he is continuing to hold very true to the policies of his late father and grand father before him. And then we heard from about 10 different party officials from different sectors that nuclear, science even textiles and manufacturing all of them saying they wholeheartedly support their supreme leader and they encourage people to do the same.

So it is really although we don't get a whole lot of informations, serving as the window into how things work here. The government tells the people what they need to do, what they need change and then the people wholeheartedly applaud and they celebrate what the government and their leader is doing, another day of life here in the North Korean capital.

Will Ripley, CNN, Pyongyang.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Now to Kenya, where the government have announced it's closing all of the countries refugee camps, a move that will displace more than 600,000 people.

The decision includes the Dadaab the world's largest refugee camp for more on the story let's go to CNN's Robyn Kriel, she doing this live from Nairobi. What's behind the government's decision Robyn? [03:10:07] ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the government saying on Friday releasing an statement from the ministry of interior which is really the security ministry, internal security ministry of Kenya, Natalie, that the reason at that that the reasons rather that they were deciding to close those camp and to expand the department of refugees which is a government department that is over seeing this more than 600,000 refugees due to economic and security reasons.

Obviously, hosting 600,000 refugees does plays a tremendous economic burden on the host country as well as security reasons.

Now the security reasons would be the terror group Al Shabaab, so Al Shabaab and in some cases has had episodes in these camps we know of the kidnappings of some medical confrontate. Doctors back in the end 2011, two Spanish doctors or two Spanish doctors belonging to that organization they were I believe, the district workers were kidnapped from that camp.

We also know that the government has for a long time been saying that these camps service a "breeding ground for the terrorist," and that they are able to leave that camp's quite freely and come to do bad things in other big cities such as Nairobi and Mombasa.

However, Humanitarian Aid Agency saying that this is a terrible idea, really pushing back on the government researching amnesty, we've heard form medical confrontate themselves and we've heard from human rights watchers, human rights watchers saying "Officials have not provided credible evidence leading Somali refugees to any terrorist attacks in Kenya."

Human rights watchers not aware of convictions of Somali refugees in connection with any attacks in Kenya, so quite a push back and also many people just saying that this is incomplete disbelief, they don't believe that it would be possible for the Kenyan government to suddenly just close a camp like that, Natalie.

ALLEN: Right, we're all of a sudden just 600,000 people go, you know, if they're not welcome in Nairobi, where else would they go.

KRIEL: Well, that's that question. If they can't stay in these camps and of course, it not just the camps on the border with Somalia, we are also -- we do also host here in Kenya refugees in Kakuma refugee camp of more than I believe 130,000 refugees from South Sudan a Burundi even the DRC stay in that refugee camps.

So because of various conflict on the borders of Kenya and surrounding nations like Kenya is host because it is a very stable nation and it does have a large United Nations other international aid organizations are able to operate very freely and comfortably here, it does host a number of this refugees.

Where do they go, they cannot return back to South Sudan, it's what a lot of this aid agencies are saying, they cannot return back to Somalia, there is a small program of repatriation that's called and where they've been repatriating around the 100 Somalis at a time from the Dadaab refugee camp because the Somali government is been welcoming them back and that the Kenyan government says it is time because there is relative stability in Somalia that these refugees where return back.

However Natalie, that relative stability is really looking at it from a glass half full often times there are suicide bombings in the capital motive issue, Al Shabaab still maintains a very active presence inside the country. So you have to really ask yourself, why are you sending these refugees back to, because often times it is just not safe for them in their host country and we're you're sending them back to Mogadishu for example, many of these refugees are not from the capital city themselves and they don't have enough money to start a new life.

ALLEN: What a situation if you feel for them as they're hearing about the governments plan.

Thank you so much Robyn Kriel for us live in Nairobi.

[03:13:52] Coming up here Donald Trump isn't just attacking Hillary Clinton, he is taking his aim at Bill too, the latest campaign trail accusation step when we come back.

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ALLEN: Police in Bangladesh are investigating the murder of a Muslim Sufi spiritual leader. The 65-year-old was found hacked to death in a mango orchard in the country's west. It's the latest in a series of similar hacking attack to the nation radical Islamic groups have claimed responsibility for many of the previous murders.

So what's behind this one?

Well, let's go to CNN's Alexandra Field, she was just in Bangladesh she joins me know live from Hong Kong. Hello Alexandra, what another horrible, horrible story.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely Natalie, and in Bangladesh there's so many questions at who is behind these killings. Yes, you had these extreme groups including ISIS claiming number of the hacking death but a lot of frustration from people across that country. A lot of fear for the fact that these killings have not been stopped, and a lot of frustration that the people behind have not been prosecuted more quickly.

In this case, the hacking death of a 65-year-old Sufi Muslim religious leader who was killed after leaving a meeting with his disciples. Hacked to death, his bruise slit.

Police state they have not yet made any arrest. And there has not in this case been a public claim of responsibility.

So, certainly question about why this 65-year-old man Mohammad Shahidullah would have become the target of this kind of attack.

Also questions frankly about whether or not it is linked to other attacks, but when you speak to people in Dhaka and beyond Dhaka in Bangladesh, they do have the spirit that there is a growing intolerance in the country because these hacking deaths have targeted not just psycholar bloggers, not just ETS bloggers but also LGBT activist and religious minorities.

Just last week, you had a case of a religious minority targeted a Hindu tailor who was hacked to death in Tanggal and then before that in Russia he -- the same place where this Sufi Muslim leader was killed. You had a university professor who was killed.

And Natalie, that's actually a place that we're able to visit when we're in Bangladesh. We traveled Northwest of Dhaka to Russia. He -- to found out what's going in that community because there has been such a huge outpouring of reaction to the death of that university professor Rezaul Karim Siddiqui.

He's students have been left unable to comprehend why the professor, an English professor would've been hacked to death in broad daylight waiting for a bus on his way to the university.

In these attacks, ISIS has claimed that they are killing people who had insulted Islam or incited our promoted Atheism. But I spoke to the professor's daughter. She tells me her father was not an Atheist. There is no evidence that he had ever written anything publically that was critical of Islam.

So again, you've got people as these cases continue to mount as more hacking deaths continue to happen. You have people asking why the targets are widening. Who is behind this and how to protect more people?

ALLEN: And Alexandra is there sense from people that they think the government is doing enough to try and cracked down on Islamist extremism?

FEILD: Across the board, you're hearing from people that not in early enough has being done because you've had this spate of killing that seemingly can't be stopped. And there is this intense frustration with the fact that the perpetrators here, the assailant have not been found, have not been brought to justice.

Arrests are made, quite routinely related to these cases but people are not seemed the kind of prosecution that they're hoping for. They want to see these people charged. They want to see these people imprisoned and they feel like that is the only way to send a clear line that these attacks will not be tolerated in Bangladesh.

So, until the government can step up, until the legal process is able to keep peace with these killings. People are saying, they're fearful that the killings will continue, Natalie.

ALLEN: All right. Thank you so much Alexandra Field for us in Hong Kong, goes back from Bangladesh.

U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says he will keep fighting all the way to the Democratic National Convention this summer. But he may be open to joining his opponent Hilary Clinton as her running mate if he fails to win his party's nomination.

[03:20:09] He was asked about that possibility by our Wolf Blitzer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNIE SANDERS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A lot of the independent votes which is what's you're going to need to win in November. So, I would say to those who super delegates look "what's more important is we defeat Donald Trump. I believed that I am the strongest candidate against him."

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: If she were to get the nomination would consider being her vice presidential running mate?

SANDER: Well, right now we are focused on the next five weeks of winning the Democratic nomination. If that does not happen, we're going to fight as hard as we can on the floor of the Democratic convention to make sure that we have a progressive platform that the American people will support.

And then after that, certainly Secretary Clinton and I can sit down and talk and see where we go from there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Donald Trump is targeting Hillary Clinton, not just on her record but that of her husband, Former President Bill Clinton.

Trump took aim at the Clinton's at a Washington state event Saturday but the former Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton has routinely fired back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She's married to a man who hurt many women. She's married to a man who got impeached for lying. He was impeached.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think we can take a risk on a lose cannon like Donald Trump running our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Trump also accused Hillary Clinton of wanting to abolish the legal gun ownership. He told a -- Washington crowd, Clinton wants to take away guns and abolish the second amendment of the constitution. That amendment states the right to keep in bare arms shall not be in French.

Clinton has never argued to abolish the second amendment but has called for search or controls on firearms.

Trump is blessed the politician who take money from wealthy donors. The billionaire had boasted about self funding his presidential bid. But it appears the presumptive Republican nominee is changing course.

Here's CNN's Sunlen Serfaty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm self funding so it's a big difference folks. I don't care. I'm going to do what's right for you.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump could be saying so long to self-funding.

TRUMP: So far, I'm in for like $40 million or $45 million.

SERFATY: Facing an expensive general election battle, the GOP front- runner is now opening the door to raising cash for his campaign, and the Republican Party.

TRUMP: I do love self-funding. And I don't want anything for myself. But we do need money for the party. I'll be asking money for the party. And really, it's something that we're going to start on right away.

SERFATY: This setting off a scramble to secure support from the deep pocketed donors within the GOP.

SHELDON ADELSON, GOP DONOR: Donald Trump will be good for Israel.

SERFATY: Trump getting a major nod from the single largest Republican contributor from 2012, casino magnate, Sheldon Adelson, one of the richest men in the world, telling the BBC Thursday night.

ADELSON: Yes, I'm a Republican. He's a Republican. He's our nominee. Whoever the nominee would turn out to be -- any one of the 17, and he's one of the 17. He won fair and square.

SERFATY: Throughout the primary, though, Trump has publicly trashed wealthy donors, even calling out some by name.

TRUMP: A guy named Singer. Who the hell ever heard him? I'll tell you a little secret. I saw -- I was surprised, because I thought I was friends -- Koch brothers. I thought I was their friend. But somebody said they're linked to a certain PAC.

SERFATY: Decrying their influence over politicians.

TRUMP: When their special interest calls, when their lobbyist calls, when their donors call and they have a stake in the deal, they're not going to do what's right for you. I didn't take any money.

SERFATY: But now, the presumptive GOP nominee is hitting some robots with these Republican rain-makers. According to a survey done by CNN, a substantial number of other big-money Republican donors are still sitting on the sidelines, withholding their money from Trump. Like the mega-wealthy Koch brothers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of the Republican candidates, we would -- before we could support them, we would have to believe their actions will be quite different than the rhetoric we've heard so far. SERFATY: Unhappy with Trump, many donors now planning to redirect their money elsewhere, investing in down ballot candidates to help Republicans in Senate, House and gubernatorial races instead.

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The biggest challenge in that sense is going up against a very well-funded opposition. Not only does Hillary Clinton have a ready and able fund-raising machine, but so many of the Democratic outside groups, the DNC. So you put all of those together, and it is a formidable opposition.

SERFATY: And the Clinton campaign is already sensing an opening, that there is potentially some real money left on the table. They have reportedly gone after former donors to Jeb Bush's campaign, trying to reach out to those moderate Republicans to support and invest in her over Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:25:15] ALLEN: Sunlen Serfaty there for us.

Well, the U.S. rhetorical show you probably know it by now Saturday night live it's again giving its irreverent take on the latest development in the presidential race. After re-imagining John Boehner's vision of Ted Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh" is word he used if you know, the program turn to a familiar target.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well it happened. Donald Trump has secured the Republican nomination and no matter how many times I say that, it's still sounds less like a headline and more like the ominous beginning of a Star Wars movie.

And even though this has been coming for months, everyone still seems shocked even Trump said he was surprised. I bet if you told Trump a year ago that he be their Republican nominee, he would have said "But I'm a Democrat."

And remember Donald Trump promise that once he got the nomination. He was going to be "So presidential". Which is why the first thing he did on Cinco de Mayo was tweet out a photo of himself eating a taco bowl with the caption saying "I love Hispanics."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Trump's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was not spared either from the show. They depicted her as a presidential Barbie Doll that nobody wants to play with.

All right, we turn to sports now, Leicester City hoisted the English premier league trophy in front of their home crowd on Saturday and they're was this special guest there to help mark the occasion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SINGING) (END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Oh, a good singer, that's legendary tenor Andrea Bocelli joining the celebration performing for a packed stadium. The home team gave the fans the show as well. They beat Everton three goals to one in their final home game of the season.

With Saturday saw the favorite knight quest chanter to victory of the Kentucky derby but there was another race of note -- it's we're focusing on right now, namely they're running a bit Chihuahuas. The dogs with their short three legs and took off for a race more than 100 Chihuahuas were in this race to the finish line and wanted to click on the tradition in the city of Chattanooga Tennessee.

We're here to report that Phoebe Coco took home the title of fastest Chihuahua.

And that's it for CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen. Erin Burnett is OUTFRONT after our top story.

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