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Chaos at Euro 2016; ISIS Claims Deadly Damascus Bombings; Indian Farmers Hope Monsoon Will End Drought. Aired 2-2:30a ET
Aired June 12, 2016 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Violence erupts during the Euro 2016 championship for the third straight day.
ISIS under pressure: Libyan forces push the militants out of a key coastal strip as the group loses its grasp on more territory in Iraq and Syria.
And wishing for stormy weather: farmers in parts of drought-stricken India hope for monsoon-driven rains and more cash in their coffers.
Hello, I'm Jonathan Mann and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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MANN: Thanks for joining us.
In France, packs of Russian and English football fans clashed yet again in Marseille Saturday, the third straight day of scuffles there before their teams met in the Euro 2016 championship. On the pitch, Russia and England ended in a 1-1 draw. On the streets, bottle throwing fans were met with police tear gas. Some 30 people were injured and police have made more than a dozen arrests in the past few days.
Our Alex Thomas has more from Paris.
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ALEX THOMAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When Dimitri Payet scored a sensational goal on the opening day of Euro 2016 to make himself a national hero for host France, it appeared that football had finally shoved the negative headlines to one side.
But only 24 hours later, matters off the pitch again stealing the spotlight at this European football championship. Reuters reporting after England's game against Russia, Russian fans charged into the section containing England supporters. There was panic and there was a bit of a crush. We are yet to receive details precisely of injuries.
We know that the authorities were expecting possible trouble outside the Stade Velodrome in Marseille. Bars had been asked to close and not serve alcohol.
But inside the grounds, there did appear to be a lack of policing and stewarding, according to social media reports.
The wife of one of the England players, Rebekah Vardy, married to Leicester City striker Jamie, saying on Twitter, "That has to be up there with the worst experience EVER at an away game! Teargassed for no reason, caged and treated like animals! Shocking!"
The organizers of Euro 2016, UEFA, European football's governing body, said they won't comment about possible sanctions against either Russia or England or both until they receive more information from their disciplinary departments, UEFA have observers at all their matches, of course.
But it was just the latest in a long line of incidents, three days of violence in Marseille in the south of France that ended up on this Saturday with around 500 people rioting, police having to break it up having to use tear gas canisters once again.
And police saying the total tally of arrests over two days was 17. And on the Saturday, there were a total of 31 injuries, four seriously hurt, and three police officers receiving minor injuries.
The French interior ministry has felt obliged to comment as well, saying preventing violence is a priority for them. They have banned already 6,000 known troublemakers, including 3,000 from the U.K., who have three representatives at this Euro 2016 tournament. And 204 foreign police officers are helping the police forces here in France to deal with it.
They're saying that they had planned for possible football hooliganism and it won't take resources away from the security services planning to prevent any possible terror attacks.
As I said, all those bad headlines taking the focus away from matter on the pitch, where England had led for so long against Russia before the Russians got a late equalizer. It means Wales topped Group B after winning their game against Slovakia earlier on in the day.
And Albania nil Switzerland won in Group A was the other result on day two of Euro 2016 -- Alex Thomas, CNN, Paris, France.
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MANN: ISIS says it targeted a Shia mosque revered by foreign forces supporting the government. The Syrian opposition group based in the U.K. says twin suicide bombings killed at least 20 people near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine of Damascus. Hezbollah militia men and other foreign forces have cited protecting the shrine, said to be the final resting place of the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, as one of their main reasons for entering the war.
Analysts say ISIS is resorting more and more to attacks like that one as its losses mount on the front lines. Ben Wedeman reports on how the group is being slowly turned back in Iraq and in Syria and Libya. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: ISIS is now under more pressure than it has been since its creation. In Libya, forces from both the eastern and western parts of the country have stripped ISIS of its control of a stretch of almost 200 kilometers on the Mediterranean coast.
On Saturday, forces from the west --
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WEDEMAN: -- said they retook the city or Sirte, a port which is 5 kilometers to the east of the city and they're poised to go into the city proper.
Here in Iraq, Iraqi forces continue to press their offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from ISIS. Fallujah came from under ISIS control, the first major urban center to be taken by ISIS in January 2014.
Since a year and a half, Iraqi forces have retaken from ISIS the cities of Tikrit, Baiji and Ramadi and all that's left under -- firmly under ISIS control is the city of Mosul in the north.
But according to U.S. officials and Iraqi officials, measures are afoot to begin an offensive eventually -- it's not clear when -- to retake that city.
In Syria, Russia is backing Syrian forces who have reentered for the first time in well over a year the province of Raqqah, where of course the city of Raqqah, ISIS' de facto capital, is located.
Elsewhere in the western part of Syria, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have surrounded the town of Manbij, which is northeast of Aleppo, pressing the offensive there.
Of course, the worry is that as ISIS moves its ground and territory, it's striking back. In Syria, two massive bombs in Damascus killing more than 20 people.
On Thursday, there was a suicide bomb and a car bomb in Baghdad. All of them claimed by ISIS, that clearly sees, as it loses on the battlefield, it will resort ever more to terrorism in the cities -- I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, Baghdad.
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MANN: Derek Van Dam joins us now with the story of a plane. Not just any plane, the Solar Impulse 2.
We catch up on its adventures.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Jon, can you imagine flying around the world without a drop of fuel? That is amazing stuff. That's what two pioneers are trying to do. You're going to hear these names mentioned quite often, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard.
Perhaps, Jon, the new Wright brothers?
You're looking at some images coming out of the Solar Impulse 2, which landed at John K. Kennedy Airport in New York City on Saturday morning, roughly about 4:00 am.
Now it was supposed to land in the Big Apple on Monday but, because of weather, they had to delay the flight. This flight of the solar plane, obviously weather dependent. Without sunshine, you can't recharge the photovoltaic cells onboard the plane. You can no longer fly the plane.
So heavily weather-dependent.
So you go, Derek, why in the world do we want to travel with this weather-dependent form of transportation when we have got planes that already travel against bad weather and against headwinds and don't require the sun?
Well, think about it, the Wright brothers, they needed to start somewhere. Well, we have got these two Swiss entrepreneurs that, well, they need to start somewhere as well. And it looks like they are making some headway because they are getting closer to circumnavigating the entire planet.
Here are some details on the Solar Impulse 2; 72-meter wingspan. This plane is huge but very, very light, only the weight of roughly a family vehicle. So you can imagine that a headwind or a stiff headwind is not going to bode very well for getting this plane to move very quickly. That's why the optimum cruising speed is between 55 to roughly 100 kilometers.
Here's a look at the detailed path that it's trying to make. It started in Abu Dhabi back in March of 2015. It was -- had a few roadblocks, including weather when it was trying to cross the Pacific. It needed to be rerouted to Japan. It was trying to make its way to Hawaii, eventually it landed on the shores of the United States and it's currently in New York City as we speak.
There are four batteries that recharge because of the sun. And here's a few different parameters that are quite interesting. The photovoltaic cells, there's about 17,000 of them, that line the wingspan and those are about as thin as that of a human hair. So extremely fragile and very susceptible to bad weather conditions.
So obviously they need to keep this plane heavily guarded under a canopy when it actually lands and that's why it needs to stay away from bad weather -- Jon.
MANN: It is an amazing thing. They've been at this since, what, March of 2015.
A slow journey.
VAN DAM: Slow progress.
MANN: Waiting for the sun to make it possible.
VAN DAM: Got to start somewhere.
MANN: You bet.
Derek Van Dam, thanks very much.
Well, let's stop talking about the sun and talk about the rain. It's the start of the rainy season in India and millions of people across the country are hoping the annual heavy rain will ease two consecutive years of drought. For India's farming community, the stakes are especially high. CNN's Sumnima Udas reports.
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SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Yet another failed harvest.
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UDAS (voice-over): Weak monsoons for two consecutive years have desiccated India's heartland and the core of it, India's farmers, are bleeding.
"Look at the soil. It's become acidic. It's unusable," he says.
Balraj Penniwal (ph) is a man of the Earth, who can tell if the much- awaited monsoons are coming just by looking up.
"Before the monsoons arrives, the clouds become thick and start rumbling, the winds pick up, the whole environment changes," he says wistfully.
Like some 64 percent of India's farmland, Penniwal, too, has no irrigation system. So he depends on the monsoons, which brings 75 percent of India's total rainfall.
"During a good monsoon, I make about $400 to $500 per acre. But if the monsoons are bad, we lose about $150 per acre. Right now, I'm in serious debt," he says.
It's a common story playing out across rural India, from one parched farmland to another.
UDAS: When it comes to the Indian economy, this is what it's really about, more than half of India's population depends on agriculture for a living.
So what happens here, in fields like this, has a direct impact on the country's bottom line.
UDAS (voice-over): Better rains means better crop output, reviving the struggling agricultural sector, capping food inflation, bringing down interest rates and boosting rural demand.
"When it rains, we can buy motorcycles and tractors. India has big dreams. But the reality is, this country is still heavily dependent on the rain," he says.
Saddled with debt, the Penniwal (ph) family has been making ends meet by working as daily wage laborers.
They hear India's become the fastest growing major economy in the world. But here, they say, there's no semblance of it. And only a good monsoon season can change their growth story -- Sumnima Udas, CNN, Haryana, India.
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MANN: Thanks for joining us for CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jonathan Mann. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is next.
