Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Battle for Mosul; Another Trump Accuser; WikiLeaks Releases Cltinon Speeches; Transatlantic Crossing. Aired 2-2:30a ET

Aired October 16, 2016 - 02:00   ET

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

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN HOST: Iraqi forces prepared to take back Mosul more than two years after the city fell to ISIS. Donald Trump faces a ninth sexual assault accuser as Wikileaks appears to release Hillary Clinton's speeches to Goldman Sachs.

And a British man gets ready to attempt a trans-Atlantic journey with just his arms and legs. It's all ahead here on "CNN Newsroom." Thanks so much for joining us live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.

A major battle against ISIS draws near in Iraq. Government forces, Kurdish Peshmerga, and Shiite paramilitaries are preparing to retake Mosul. ISIS has held this key city for more than two years.

Some one million people may still live there. And aid groups warn of a potential humanitarian crisis ahead of the battle. The Iraqi air force dropped leaflets on Mosul Saturday night, warning residents to avoid ISIS positions and promising victory.

Our Ben Wedeman is in Iraq with the latest on the coming fight.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The day of reckoning for Mosul is fast approaching. Thousands of troops including Iraqi special forces, paramilitaries, the army, Iraqi police, and Kurdish fighters are assembled on the outskirts of the city, Iraq's second largest, occupied since ISIS since June of 2014. All that remains is for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to announce the beginning of the offensive.

Now, we're hearing from sources inside Mosul that the group is trying to bolster its defenses. It apparently has released many prisoners being held for offenses like smoking cigarettes, wearing the wrong clothing, and shaving have been released and forced to dig trenches and tunnels on the outskirts of the city.

Sources also tell us that ISIS has authorized wounded militants to leave the city, presumably to Syria. In the meantime, we learned that six buses left the city early this morning with women, children as well as men.

Now, others, however, who tried to flee the city suffered a different fate. Sources tell us that 14 ISIS militants, including two leaders, were executed for abandoning the city. The battle for Mosul is going to be long and difficult.

Keep in mind, it's a city where perhaps at this point, one million people still live. For ISIS, the loss of Mosul will be a critical blow. It was there that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the caliphate in 2014.

Losing the city will be a blow, not only to its ambitions, but perhaps to the very existence of the group. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Erbil, Northern Iraq.

ALLEN: The search for a ceasefire in Syria is now shifting to London, where a meeting is planned Sunday. Main talks in Switzerland ended late Saturday with a few minor agreements but no major breakthrough.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry characterized Saturday's meeting as more of a brainstorming session. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey were among the countries that participated.

On the U.S. campaign trail, a new poll from the "Washington Post" and ABC News shows Democrat Hillary Clinton leading Republican Donald Trump by four points. She's up 47 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, only a slight change from their last poll, taken before the first debate.

The polling was conducted during what may be the most controversial stretch of Trump's campaign. But 64 percent of respondents say Trump's lewd comments about women caught on tape won't affect their vote. Trump is calling for a drug test prior to the next presidential debate.

He's suggesting that Clinton took performance enhancers to improve her debate performances. It's not the first time he questioned her health or stamina without evidence. But it is a new line of attack.

This was his explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate.

(APPLAUSE)

I do. I think we should -- why don't we do that? We should take a drug test prior -- because I don't know what's going on with her. But at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning and at the end, it was like, oh, take me down.

She could barely reach her car. So I think we should take a drug test. I (ph) -- anyway, I'm willing to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: The Clinton campaign called the allegation a shameful attempt to undermine the election. Another woman is accusing Trump of unwanted sexual advances, bringing the total number of accusers to at least nine women now.

Cathy Heller tells "The Guardian" the incident happened about 20 years ago at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort in Florida. She told the newspaper Trump grabbed her and kissed her. CNN has not been able to independently confirm her claims.

The Trump campaign responded to the allegation saying the media has gone too far in making this false accusation. There is no way something like this would have happened in a public place on Mother's Day at Mr. Trump's resort.

It would have been the talk of Palm Beach for the past two decades. The reality is this. For the media to wheel out a politically motivated democratic activist with a legal dispute against the same resort owned by Mr. Trump does a disservice to the public and anyone covering this story should be embarrassed for elevating this bogus claim.

Well, after Hillary Clinton resisted for months to release transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs, it appears Wikileaks did it for her. The speeches show Clinton talking about Wall Street's role in financial regulations, relations with Russia, and Wikileaks itself.

In 2013, remarks at a Goldman Sachs event, Clinton joked that she had to smooth things over with foreign leaders after the release of NSA documents. Clinton said, "It was painful, leaders who shall remain nameless, who were characterized as vain, egotistical, power-hungry, corrupt. And we knew they were there.

This was not fiction. And I had to go and say, you know, our ambassadors, they get carried away. They want to all be literary people. They go off on tangents.

What can I say? I had grown men cry, I mean, literally." That according to a Wikileaks e-mail. The Clinton campaign seemed worried about the speeches becoming public.

E-mails show staffers had asked the campaign's head of research to find any comments in them that could be politically problematic. For more than a week, Wikileaks has been releasing e-mails it hacked from Clinton's campaign Chairman, John Podesta.

And that might be his face...

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Expression at (ph) the results.

ALLEN: All right. Well, Derek's here to talk about a landmark climate agreement that was reached in Rwanda Saturday. Explain what it means in the big picture.

VAN DAM: Yes, Natalie, this is an amendment to the Montreal protocol that was ratified by almost 200 countries back in the late '80s. It was used to prevent the collapse of the ozone layer, if you recall. And it was very effective in doing so.

What it did is it actually reduced CFCs, chlorofluorocarbons. We heard that before. Those were used in refrigerators and A.C. units to help cool those devices.

The problem was that it was very effective but scientists and developers needed an alternative to CFC. So enter the HFC. That is hydrofluorocarbons. What are they exactly?

Well, they are the substitute to helping cool our refrigerators and our A.C. units. And they did so very, very well for about 20 years since that Montreal Protocol was effectively established around 1987.

The problem is that it didn't, in fact, impact the ozone layer. But it did create a problem with greenhouse gases. We talk about that so often with carbon dioxide being an effective heat trapper.

Well, guess what, this is -- the HFCs are about 10 to 100 times more effective at actually trapping those heat -- the heat, a radiative heat across the earth's surface. Unfortunately, HFCs were not the best substitute.

And finally, scientists are realizing this. So they're going to try to and attack this now by establishing this Kigali Amendment, or the amendment to the Montreal Protocol. So what it says, and it's an agreement by several countries, including some of the biggest polluters, being the United States and the European Union.

And by 2019, both those two regions say that they will have a 10 percent reduction in HFCs within refrigerators and A.C. units. And that, along with other countries, joining in, will effectively decrease our global warming by a half degree Celsius.

Remember, we're trying to keep that below two degrees. This is substantial, considering that we have had nine of the top 10 warmest years since 2000. So we really need to combat this.

Now, why should we care? Well, we see so much direct link between a warming planet and extreme weather events like hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, heavy rains, coastal flooding and erosion. There's a prime example.

Fingerprints of climate change right here -- typhoon Sarika just blasting through the northern Philippines, Luzon, a hundred and 50- kilometer-per-hour winds. This storm is going to reintensify as it heads towards Hainan in southern China eventually making landfall again in northern China, near Hanoi and Halong Bay region -- beautiful part of the world.

Well, it's terrifying to see how quickly these things can re-intensify over the western Pacific.

ALLEN: And finally (ph), the world's coming together.

VAN DAM: It is in trying to combat climate change again (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

ALLEN: And another day begins (ph). All right, stick around for this one. The weather will be a big factor when a former British police officer goes for the biggest swim on the planet.

VAN DAM: OK.

ALLEN: Ben Hooper hopes to be the first person ever to swim across the Atlantic...

VAN DAM: What?

ALLEN: ...from Africa to South America. What? Well, here is Robyn Curnow to tell us how he's getting ready.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: For Ben Hooper, this isn't just another day at the beach. The 38-year-old Brit is preparing to embark on an epic aquatic quest, to swim the Atlantic Ocean.

HOOPER: So I sat there and thought, right, I'm going to do this. Now, how the hell do I do it? And that was three and a half years ago.

CURNOW: Next month, Hooper will set off for Dakar, Senegal, attempting to swim all the way across the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil, a straight line distance of more than 1,600 nautical miles. His actual route will be even longer to account for currents and drift.

To get there, the former policeman plans to swim up to 10 hours a day over approximately a hundred and 40 days. Along the way, he'll face the threat of sharks, jellyfish, powerful currents and monster waves.

HOOPER: And obviously, everyday, the ocean, she will predict what happens.

CURNOW: A safety and support team will follow Hooper closely for every stroke. And he'll get to sleep aboard the team's boat.

If he succeeds, this would be a world record, making Hooper the first person to ever swim across the ocean.

HOOPER: Every bloody mile, OK, whether it kills me or not, every single mile has to be swum. And then I'll be happy.

CURNOW: It's a monumental feat, especially when you know that Hooper nearly drowned in a swimming pool when he was five years old. Now, he swims up to 40 kilometers a day. And while some critics doubt he can make it across the Atlantic on his first attempt, Hooper says he won't give up.

HOOPER: What I say is if I don't make this, as long as I have at least one leg and one arm, I will bloody do it again. And I will get it done.

CURNOW: Hooper says he's more than ready to take the plunge. And he plans to head out to sea November the 1st. Robyn Curnow, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN DAM: Wow.

ALLEN: Unreal. VAN DAM: That was amazing. Water temperatures over that stretch are

actually about 80 degrees Celsius or roughly 27 -- or 80 degrees Fahrenheit, 27 degrees Celsius.

So that's warm enough to not have hypothermia. So that could be in his favor.

ALLEN: OK then (ph), we'll wish him luck.

VAN DAM: Yes, absolutely.

ALLEN: We'll keep you posted when that starts.

VAN DAM: Monumental achievement.

ALLEN: Oh, my goodness. Thanks for watching. I'm Natalie Allen with Derek and "Marketplace Africa" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to "Marketplace Africa." I'm Eleni Giokos, standing in for Zain Asher. And I'm at this manufacturing facility in Johannesburg because this week, we're going to be taking a look at the company that supplies zippers for these products and probably for many of the garments in your closet.

So we'll be taking you to Japan to speak to the president of YKK. But before we go to the far east, I'd like to take you to you one of Africa's islands, Cape Verde.

This tiny nation is doing big things in alternative energy. And it's creating new industries. As an island nation, Cape Verde's tropical climate offers two important resources -- the sun and the wind.

Until recently, they weren't being put to much use. But that's all changing after the government launched an ambitious project to power the entire country with renewable energy alone by the year 2020.

Cape Verde once relied on diesel to supply its electricity. But today, it's fast becoming a standard bearer for the potential of wind and solar.

ANA MONTEITO (ph): The government of Cape Verde decided to invest in renewable energy since they knew it was a feasible source of electricity and because we have abundant wind and solar potential. So they decided to invest in a source of energy that was basically local and that we can essentially control.