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Istanbul Night Club Attack; Queen Elizabeth to Miss New Year's Service; Hacking Investigation; Cities around the World Ring in 2017. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired January 01, 2017 - 05:00   ET

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


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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Terror on New Year's Eve. An attack on an Istanbul night club kills dozens of people there to celebrate. We'll have a live report ahead.

Too ill to go, Queen Elizabeth misses another church service due to a lingering cold.

And a warning from Kim Jong-un. The North Korean leader says he's close to testing an intercontinental ballistic missile. We're live in Seoul for that.

It's all ahead here on this January 1 CNN NEWSROOM. Thank you for joining us and Happy New Year, I'm Natalie Allen.

Unfortunately, we begin with an act of terror in Turkey. Police there looking now for a gunman, who opened fire inside a popular Istanbul night club, killing dozens of people.

The attack happened just about an hour after Turkey rang in the New Year. That's the gunman there. The video shows him or her -- we're not quite sure -- entering the night club as bullets ricochet off the street. That person has not been identified.

But Turkey's deputy prime minister says one attacker, a lone attacker, is responsible. At least 39 people were killed and nearly 70 wounded. Investigators say several of the dead are foreign nationals. One wounded man described what he saw inside the club.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been shot in the (INAUDIBLE) leg, man. These crazy people came and shoot at everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I saw one person. They're shooting. I'm hiding (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP) ALLEN: Turkey's president says the attack was an attempt to destabilize the nation. CNN's Ian Lee has been covering this for us, he joins us now live there in Istanbul.

What a terrible, terrible way to start the New Year and certainly Istanbul has had things like this happen in the past year.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Natalie. Right now, the Turkish officials are conducting a massive manhunt.

In that video that you were watching, what you were seeing the gunman outside of the club, spraying it with bullets before going in, that is going to become a crucial piece of evidence as they try to identify the person who committed this crime.

But right now, they are also looking into if anyone could have helped this person carry out this horrible attack. I talked to someone, who was actually in the club to get an idea what the atmosphere was like, it was packed New Year's Eve, everyone was having a good time.

And then they started hearing loud noises, the gunfire. They started fleeing toward the Bosphorus onto the terrace. I said that some of the people actually jumped into the Bosphorus to escape. They hid.

Then he said you heard two loud noises, not gunfire. He wasn't sure what those loud noises were, and then continuous gunfire for about 10 minutes, he said, before the gunman fled.

But right now, again, we're hearing from the Turkish prime minister, saying that they are only looking for one gunman. There were reports earlier that there could have possibly been two but we're hearing from officials that it is one gunman and we don't know if it was a man or a woman.

ALLEN: Ian, I have to ask, because Turkey has had so many attacks lately and we keep hearing about the police presence and heightened security, how does one gunman get past security, that we predict was heightened for the New Year, get in there, do this and then get away?

LEE: Well, that's right. And the club, which is just behind me, had a police officer out front; there was heavy security across Istanbul before this event even happened to prepare for security for New Year's.

We ourselves were patted down, we had our bags searched, the police had heavy presence. But still this one gunman was able to slip into that club or attack the club and then slip inside and commit this crime.

There will have to be, of course, a review of security but it is hard to protect against one person who's on this sort of mission.

ALLEN: Well, we certainly hope that this person who did this is found and we'll stay in touch with you about that. Ian Lee for us in Istanbul, thank you, Ian. There have been a number, as we mentioned, of other significant attacks in Turkey since the attempted coup in July. On August 18th, a series of bomb attacks targeting security forces in the east of the country killed 12 people and wounded some 300 others.

Just days later, a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a wedding party in Gaziantep, killing at least 53 and injuring 100.

On September 12th, 50 people were injured when suspected Kurdish militants --

[05:05:00]

ALLEN: -- detonated a bomb in the southeastern city of Van.

Then on October 9th, a bomb exploded outside a police station in Southeastern Turkey, killing 18.

And in November, a bomb targeting a police station then as well killed nine people and injured over 100 others.

Well, Britain's Queen Elizabeth will not be attending New Year's Day church service. Buckingham Palace says the 90-year-old monarch is still recovering from a heavy cold. It would have been the queen's first public appearance since missing the royals' traditional Christmas service last weekend.

Let's go now to Max Foster. He joins us on the phone from Newbury, England.

What do we know about the queen's illness?

Hello, Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, yes. Well, we've just been really waiting for updates and the palace keeps saying that she has this heavy cold, so they don't want to give a running commentary on it; it's not serious enough to do that.

Also she's on a private holiday, effectively, which is at her private home, Sandringham. She's there every year but she does make these routine appearances, as you say, on Christmas Day but also on New Year's Day.

So in an hour she was due to appear again at church and she didn't turn up. Lots of questions will be asked, so they've been sort of prompted really into giving a preannouncement, if you like, that she wouldn't be turning up.

It's almost anti-news, in a way, but people are very concerned about her heavy cold and she is in her 90s now.

And effectively what they said is that she won't be turning up because she does have this heavy cold. She's still recuperating from it but she is well enough to be up and working from home, effectively. So every day she gets sent these red boxes from the government; as

head of state, she has that responsibility to read them every day, so she is reading what's in the paperwork from the government in these red boxes that appear every day. So that's effectively her working from home.

And she's well enough to be walking about and they are not overly concerned. They are not necessarily playing it down because they are saying it's a heavy cold but they are saying, you know, nothing more to be worked out (ph) from that. She simply wasn't well enough to go to church today.

ALLEN: All right. Well, we wish her well and, yes, hope she gets off to a better New Year after missing out the past week.

Queen Elizabeth there, still suffering from a cold and missing a traditional New Year's Day services.

We are also following breaking news out of North Korea. Its leader says the country is close to testing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In a New Year's Day speech, Kim Jong-un referred to North Korea as a nuclear and military power. He says the nation will continue testing against potential threats from the United States.

For more about it, CNN's Saima Mohsin is following this story for us from Seoul, South Korea.

Hello, Saima.

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Natalie, he chose his New Year's Day address to inform the world of how far they've got in their nuclear development program. Now of course, there's no way of independently verifying this information.

But if he's saying so, a lot of analysts are saying we should take his word for it.

And just a few days ago, in fact, Natalie, North Korea detected the highest diplomatic defection in history. The deputy, former deputy ambassador of the North Korean embassy in London said that Kim Jong-un is determined to complete his weapons development in his nuclear ambitions by the end of 2017.

And this announcement from Kim Jong-un New Year's Day seems to be in line with that. Now he said in this speech that he had already successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. Again, we've heard those claims before. But we are unable and experts aren't able to independently verify that.

And this time he said they are very close to test launching an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Now the other concern, of course, Natalie, is that, back in February 2016, not long ago at all, North Korea launched a satellite. And a lot of experts said that this was really a template and a test to see if North Korea could launch a long-range missile into the stratosphere. And really the next point is just can they adapt the nuclear warhead to attach to it.

So he is saying they have. Of course, North Korea tested twice, carried out two nuclear tests in 2016. The largest and the fifth of all its nuclear tests on September 9th, which led to yet more sanctions. But those don't seem to be stopping him -- Natalie.

ALLEN: Right. And he makes his announcement at a time that the United States is getting a new president. Saima Mohsin for us there in Seoul, South Korea, thank you, Saima.

That president, of course, Donald Trump, the president-elect, is celebrating the New Year at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida. During the black tie festivities Saturday night, a reporter --

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ALLEN: -- asked him why he remains skeptical of Russia being behind cyber attacks during the U.S. presidential race. He replied that U.S. intelligence agencies have been wrong before. He also claimed to have inside information about the situation.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I just want them to be sure because it's a pretty serious charge. And I want them to be sure and if you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster and they were wrong. And so I want them to be sure.

I think it's unfair if they don't know. And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don't know. And so they cannot be sure of the situation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like what?

What do you know that other people don't know?

TRUMP: You'll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: The U.N. Security Council is welcoming a new cease-fire in Syria's civil war. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is hoping the peace deal will lead to a political solution that favors him. Turkey and Russia negotiated the nationwide truce and the U.N. resolution was supported unanimously.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have voted in favor of this resolution, because it strikes the right balance, cautious optimism and support, predicated on hope but tempered by a realistic need to wait to see how this arrangement is implemented before casting the full weight of the Security Council behind it.

We would highlight two key points: our hope is that a cease-fire will truly hold and will not serve as a justification for further unacceptable offensives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Rebel groups are threatening to abandon the agreement if minor violations to the truce continue. Rebels say the government is taking advantage of the cease-fire to attack areas under rebel control.

The clock is ticking down on New Year's celebrations around the world, one time zone at a time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN (voice-over): This was New York City just a few hours ago as midnight arrived in Times Square. Thousands of people crowding into Times Square for the annual party. Some say up to maybe a million people.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was given the honor of bringing down the iconic ball.

And this was the scene several hours earlier. This is London along the River Thames as midnight arrived there. Tickets for the annual event for sold out.

And Paris: fireworks lit up the Arc de Triomphe. Thousands of people packed the Champs-Elysees to watch and cheer.

And here's the Russian capital, marking the arrival of a New Year; the fireworks near the Kremlin illuminated the Moscow River.

And in Australia, a thunderous display of pyrotechnics over the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge. The show included tributes to the late musicians, Prince and David Bowie.

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ALLEN: Thanks for watching. "CNN Inspirations" is next.

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