Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
No Known Motive in Toronto Van Attack; Waffle House Shooter Arrested; Former President George H.W. Bush in Intensive Care; Macron and Trump to Hold Working Meetings; Iran Nuclear Deal; North-South Korean Summit; Monsoons Threaten Rohingya Refugee Camps; Royal Couple Welcomes Baby Boy. Aired 12m-1a ET
Aired April 24, 2018 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. Ahead this hour:
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A terrifying scene in Toronto. A driver plows onto a busy sidewalk, killing 10 people. New details about his possible motivation.
VAUSE (voice-over): Also ahead, a 34-hour manhunt leads to the arrest of the suspect believed to have shot dead four people at a Waffle House in Tennessee.
SESAY (voice-over): And just a day after his wife's funeral, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush goes into intensive care at a Texas hospital.
VAUSE (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers from all around the world. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause.
SESAY (voice-over): And I'm Isha Sesay. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
VAUSE: A typical spring day in Canada's biggest city turned into a nightmare when a man driving a white rental van appeared to deliberately target pedestrians in Toronto, bringing down dozens of people on a busy street.
SESAY: Police have the suspect in custody. Now they are trying to figure out a motive. CNN's Alex Marquardt has the latest from Toronto.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Federal and local authorities have provided an update saying that some 10 people have been killed in this attack with 15 wounded, several of them in critical and serious condition. The officials have also identified the alleged attackers as a 25-year-
old male from Richmond Hill, which is about half an hour outside Toronto. They identified him as Alek Minassian. And contrary to some earlier reporting, they say his name was not known, that it was not in the files.
For now they're not calling this a terror attack, saying it is not a threat to national security, that there are no other attacks that they know of that are in the works and they are not raising the terror threat level.
They've also given a fuller picture of how this attack unfolded. It took just 26 minutes from start to finish, starting at 1:26 pm right here on Young Street, when the busiest streets in the country. It was a beautiful day. People were out and about, going to and from work, to and from lunch, when the attacker hopped up onto the curb in that white Ryder rental van, driving down the sidewalk southbound, plowing into people.
Witnesses say that the driver was going some 40 to 50 miles an hour, calling the scene a nightmare and absolute pandemonium. At 1:52 pm the policeman managed to corner the attacker. They got him out of the car. There was a dramatic standoff, in which the attacker appeared to be holding something in his hand, pointing at the police, claiming to have a gun.
The police, showing restraint, did not fire their weapons. They said they ordered to get on the ground, which he did and he was handcuffed and taken away without incident. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on! Get down!
ALEK MINASSIAN, VAN DRIVER: Kill me!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, get down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down!
MINASSIAN: (INAUDIBLE) gun in my pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care, get down!
MINASSIAN: (INAUDIBLE) gun in my pocket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down or you're going to get shot.
MINASSIAN: Shoot me in the head!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARQUARDT: The big question now, what is the motive? So far there has been no claim of responsibility, no indication yet that this was terror inspired. But of course it does dredge up some horrific memories of very similar terror attacks in other major cities, like Berlin, Barcelona and Nice and, of course, New York last year on Halloween -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Toronto.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: Steve Moore is a law enforcement contributor and retired FBI supervisory special agent.
Steve, as always, thank you for being with us. I want you to listen to what Toronto's police chief said about the attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK SAUNDERS, TORONTO POLICE CHIEF: At this particular point in time, there's nothing that does affect the national security footprint. We are looking very strongly to very strongly to what the exact motive or motivation was for this particular incident to take place. And at the end of the day, we will have a fulsome answer. And we'll have a fulsome account as to what the conclusion of this is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SESAY: Steve, "does not affect the national security footprint," what does that statement say to you?
STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's slightly equivocal, I think. What -- that could mean anything from this was an individual attack to he wasn't related to any kind of political thing at all or so it doesn't tell us whether this was an attack based on ideology or not.
It just says that they don't think that there's anything else out there.
SESAY: They're saying so clearly without revealing much or making definitive but still making the clear statement about national security and the threat level.
Does it mean that they know more than they revealed publicly?
MOORE: To make any kind of statement, where they say it is not a current national security threat, they have to know --
[00:05:00]
MOORE: -- something. And in these situations, frequently the initial interview with the suspect, the initial searches, the initial contact to friends and family will give you a very quick read of the entire situation.
My thinking on this is it is still out there but I think we're probably dealing with somebody with more mental illness than political needs. SESAY: Yes, political affiliation. As we try and get to that understanding of the motive, CNN's learning that on a Facebook account that investigators believe belongs to the suspect, Minassian, that he posted early on Monday a message claiming, all hail the supreme gentleman Elliott Roger (ph).
Now investigators believe that the Facebook post is referring to Elliott Roger (ph), who, just to remind our viewers, is that the shooter who killed a number of people with a gun and vehicle here in California back in 2014.
That individual was said to be a green because he felt he'd been spurned by women. So that Facebook account does belong to Minassian, if he was the one that posted that statement, praising Roger, what does that say to you?
MOORE: Again, a lot of these people -- I mean we've got a violence problem in the world right now. People walking into schools, shooting people, people driving these vehicles down streets like this.
What we're finding out is that a lot of people just want to kill more people than the last one. It's their way of immortality. It's their way of securing a place in the world regardless of how gruesome that place is.
SESAY: As we talk about the desire for immortality, in the case of these individuals, I want to play the video of Minassian being taken into custody. And as we play it, I want you to take a close look at it and tell me what stands out to you because I watch the police officer and standing to the right of the screen and he keeps making this movement, almost like he's drawing a gun like you see in the Westerns.
And then he stands with his arm outstretched.
What stands out for you and do you think he wanted to be shot and killed when you look at how this played out?
MOORE: Yes, I really do think he wanted to be killed. He obviously didn't have a weapon with which to kill himself or the guts to do it at the moment that this happened. I'm sure this was his best attempt at ending his life at the moment.
And the police were very right, obviously, in not firing. You only fire when your life is in danger. The police officer was probably close enough; it was a bright sunny day. He probably saw that there was no firearm there. That's a great deal of discipline.
SESAY: Steve, stand by for us. I want to get your thoughts on what happened in Tennessee. There's another shooting, another shooting in Tennessee here in the United States. That is renewing the conversation about gun control and mental health.
This man is now in custody after 35 hours on the run following Sunday's deadly shooting at a Waffle House diner. Travis Reinking was arrested Monday near his apartment. He's accused of shooting and killing four people with an assault-style rifle.
Last summer, the same individual was arrested for trespassing near the White House. He also appeared to be mentally unstable, once telling first responders that he believed that singer Taylor Swift was stalking him.
So back to Steve now, our law enforcement contributor, Steve, as we look at what happened in Tennessee, we understand that this was an individual who had several encounters with police.
We know that he had mental health issues. His parents are quoted as saying in police records. What I was struck by is that when he was finally taken into custody after this 30-plus hour manhunt, he was taken into custody without incident and he immediately requested a lawyer and refused to answer questions.
What do you make of that?
Are you surprised by that?
MOORE: Yes, that's unusual. Usually people who allow themselves to be taken into custody want to talk about why they did it. They've got an agenda. They want -- they want you to know all about them and why they did it.
But what this shows me, what this kind of leans me towards is the psychosis of the person. These people sometimes have a psychosis that comes and goes. You can be mentally unstable or delusional one moment. And then you can be a planning, cunning person the next.
I mean I believe he planned this attack very carefully before --
(CROSSTALK)
SESAY: Why do you say that?
MOORE: -- well, because he took the time to stack the stack. They coat he was wearing --
[00:10:00]
MOORE: -- with the magazines, which means he had to load those magazines. You don't just keep magazines around loaded like that.
So at best, he probably spent an hour or two planning for this one attack. So there are moments of lucidity and moments of delusion. And I think this kind of indicates that, when he came to his senses almost, he needed -- he needed -- he wasn't ready to kill himself, wasn't ready to throw his life away, which is really kind of a strange contradiction, seeing as what he has already done.
SESAY: Yes, the obviously question now in light of what we understand are mental health issues, the obvious question is, how did he get his hands on the weaponry?
MOORE: Somebody committed a felony, in my opinion. When you are -- when they take a gun away from a guy -- I mean, look how hard it is to take guns away from people because of mental illness. The FBI and the Secret Service and the local authorities in Illinois got this done.
And then somewhere along the line, somebody returned the guns to his father. I don't understand that. Maybe we'll learn more about that as we go. But it was done on the promise that he wasn't going to commit a felony.
And that felony being giving access to his son, to those weapons. And once you do that, you kind of own what happens afterwards.
SESAY: In instances where we've seen guns handed over to people who go on and commit crimes, once they've been confiscated, do the authorities always press charges?
Do they always prosecute?
MOORE: I've tried. I mean, I have had these cases where somebody knowingly gave a firearm to somebody who wasn't authorized to have it and they went and killed somebody. And I've tried to prosecute them as an FBI agent and been unable to get the Justice Department to prosecute.
Obviously this was years ago, and things are changed a little bit, but we need to prosecute this because, if you don't, none of the gun laws that we have any -- already mean anything and there's no need to pass any more because obviously we're not going to enforce them.
This needs to be enforced. This needs to be prosecuted. I don't know what it's like to have a son who's delusional. I don't know the full circumstances of this. I hurt for the father. But you can't ignore it.
SESAY: Steve Moore, always good to talk to you, really important insight and context. Thank you so much.
MOORE: Thank you.
VAUSE: At this hour, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush is in intensive care at Houston's Methodist Hospital. He was admitted just a day after the funeral for his wife, Barbara.
In a statement, a spokesman says the 93-year old had contracted an infection that spread to his blood. He is responding to treatment and appears to be recovering. We will issue additional updates as events warrant.
Joining us now here in Los Angeles, political analyst Michael Genovese and CNN's European affairs commentator, Dominic Thomas.
Good to have you both here.
Michael, let's start with the situation with George H.W. Bush because in the last couple of hours there's been a lot of focus on him, his health but also his presidency, his legacy and what seems to be incredibly stark here is just how different he was in style and substance to the current Republican president, Donald Trump.
MICHAEL GENOVESE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, truth in advertising to begin with. I worked very briefly for President Bush, did work as a consultant in the Pentagon on crisis management. And I have a great deal of respect and admiration for him.
VAUSE: That seems to be universal in many ways --
(CROSSTALK)
GENOVESE: -- and it's earned. It's not just -- those aren't just words. People who know him really respect and admire him. His legacy, I think there are three things that stand out.
One, he inherited from President Reagan an incredible ballooning deficit that he had to deal. So he cleaned out the Aegean stables, raising taxes in the process, which hurt him politically but he did it for the country.
He was president at the end of the Cold War and, instead of a lot of fanfare and throwing himself a big parade, he was very mature, quiet, because they feared that if we bragged too much about it, there could be a backlash.
And the third thing, of course, the Gulf War, where he masterfully orchestrated a coalition of nations from all over the globe. Known for what he did do, which is drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but what he didn't do as well. Didn't go into Beirut, didn't take out Saddam Hussein and --
(CROSSTALK)
GENOVESE: -- like his son, basically own a broken country.
He had some mistakes. He made some mistakes. Quayle, his vice president, became a national joke. Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Chief Justice, to some, was a national nightmare (INAUDIBLE) justice.
And he wasn't a great retail politician. But his legacy I think will be a very positive one compared to Trump. They couldn't be more opposite. One was very mature; Trump is very childish. One very polished, the other one is kind of crass. One has great humility; the other one can't stop --
[00:15:00]
GENOVESE: -- bragging. One was a great war hero, one did not serve in the military. One's a great family man; the other thrice married. So they could not be more opposite and you can see that in the way that people respect H.W. and not President Trump so much.
VAUSE: And Dominic, as Donald Trump prepares for this meeting, this serious -- the business end of these meetings with the French President Emmanuel Macron happening this week. There's a state dinner on Tuesday.
George H.W. Bush, when he was president, he cultivated a very strong relationship with then president of France, President Mitterrand.
That was a close personal relationship which paid off for George W. Bush when it came to the reunification of East and West Germany. This time if you look at Macron and Trump, it almost seems the roles are reversed.
Macron is cultivating Trump because he needs Trump.
DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes, it's very interesting to go back to that moment that Father Bush became vice president the year that the Socialists, let's not forget, Francois Mitterrand became president of France.
And for the next decades, that included Father Bush becoming president, the one big thing that they worked on together was this remarkable historic moment, was the fall of the Berlin Wall and the gradual collapse of the Soviet Union.
And they worked very closely with the Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the process of unification at a time when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was completely really opposed to a return of a strong Germany.
And one could argue that was the last moment of the 20th century. And for the next 20 years where the Atlantic relationship was privileged in the sense of the United States and France because of course Bill Clinton and then after him the son, George W. Bush, was very close to Tony Blair in the United Kingdom.
And the chemistry with Nicolas Sarkozy, subsequently, and Francois Hollande really wasn't that impressive. And so now what we have some 20 years later, I think two things.
First of all, Emmanuel Macron realizes there's an opportunity and an opening here, that this is an incredibly important Atlantic relationship and that both of them need each other for their projects to work out.
And Emmanuel Macron is fastening on the fact that across the channel, that the leadership of Theresa May and the Brexit circumstances have left a giant opening in terms of negotiating that relationship.
VAUSE: Well, Macron is in town. They've had some sightseeing on Monday. They planted a tree. They went down to George Washington's estate at Mt. Vernon. Macron is smart enough, though, over the weekend to appear on FOX News to deliver a message about the Iran nuclear deal. This is it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): What is a what-if scenario?
All you can be. I don't have any plan B for nuclear against Iran. So, that's the question we will discuss. That's why I just want to say, on nuclear, let's preserve this framework because it's better than the sort of North Korean type of situation. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Obviously Macron knows that Trump watches FOX. He wanted to get a message to him before he arrived. This is the man they call the Trump whisperer.
THOMAS: Yes and so very interesting. Not only does he go on this particular network but let's not forget the fact he is speaking in English. He is not using a translator. That communications skill that he has is incredibly important here.
He's on FOX News; of course, he's been criticized for working with this particular network and so on. But I think by appearing on there he not only disarmed potentially a Trump base by coming across as a fairly reasonable, rational individual, but I think he also explained a number of incredibly complex issues, from North Korea and Iran, in ways that perhaps President Trump has not been able to do on Twitter and through his public appearances, thereby, in some ways, further disarming that base and paving the way for more open dialogue with President Trump and allowing Trump to be perhaps more enlisted without feeling like he's backing down on issues that he dug himself in on.
VAUSE: During an interview "The National Interest" -- it's a policy magazine out of Washington -- the Iranian Foreign Minister said about the U.S. president wanting to renegotiate this nuclear deal and now the United States is saying, what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable. But whatever I gave you now I want back.
Who would in their right mind deal with the U.S. anymore?
Michael, clearly (INAUDIBLE) North Koreans ahead of this summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un?
GENOVESE: That's right. And Kim Jong-un's strategy has to be well, can I trust this guy if he pulls out of the Iran deal which all of our allies are supporting, then his word is not going to be his bond.
And so it makes a difficult situation even more difficult and so, as Macron said, there's no plan B. There is no -- his great argument is there is no plan B. And if there is no plan B, is Donald Trump just going to let it fizzle away?
VAUSE: And we have of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel arriving on Friday.
Dominic, will she be -- obviously having a similar message on Iran -- but will she be the bad cop --
[00:20:00]
VAUSE: -- to Macron, the good cop?
THOMAS: I think invariably there's some of that. There's something about Macron being new and fresh on the scene and both of them talked about that; whereas Chancellor Merkel has been around for 12 years with all kinds of baggage. I do think, however, that Macron's visit paves the way for a gentler, kinder relationship with Chancellor Merkel. And the hope is that after these two days that there's been some movement on issues that are incredibly important to the European Union beyond the Iran deal, with the question of trades and tariffs and those sorts of things.
VAUSE: Michael, what is interesting is that the backdrop or the background noise amongst all of this are the ongoing investigations, the criminal, the legal cases, the lawsuits, the Russia investigation; Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen being criminally investigated, a lot of speculation that Cohen will flip. He will tell the prosecutors all that he knows about Donald Trump.
That is a question which obviously the president has been thinking about over the weekend, a series of tweets, one of them partly read, "Most people will flip if the government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don't see Michael doing that, despite the horrible witch hunt and the dishonest media."
Michael Avenatti, who represents the adult film star, Stormy Daniels, who is suing the president, he had this theory about why the president was tweeting that out. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL AVENATTI, STORMY DANIELS' ATTORNEY: The president is laying a foundation to be able to argue, when Michael Cohen does flip -- and I've been firm for weeks about this; I called it first. I firmly believe that he is going to flip. I firmly believe he is going to tell prosecutors and investigators a lot of damaging information about the president.
And what the president did by way of these tweets is, he laid the foundation to argue later that somehow Michael Cohen has fabricated all this. And it is not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Michael.
GENOVESE: Well, it's been commented before so this is not original to me.
But why should we worry about him flipping if the president's done nothing, if there's nothing that's flippable?
But Cohen does face some serious jail time possibly and that has a way of loosening the tongue. But if you look at the people who've work for President Trump, how many of them have met a terrible, terrible fate, debilitating legal fees, humiliation, threatened jail time -- I don't think Michael Cohen sees himself as being the kind of guy who would do well in jail.
And so depending on what Mueller has, he could very well get him to flip. VAUSE: He'd take a bullet but not an indictment.
(LAUGHTER)
VAUSE: Dominic, so many scandals and controversies surrounding this White House.
How does that impact the view of European leaders when it comes to dealing with Donald Trump?
THOMAS: Well, the view of the American president and of the United States, all research shows, has gone down dramatically in the past 1.5 years. The biggest issue is not just the offensive rhetoric of this president, the nationalist/protectionist comments on immigration, women, whatever it happens to be, that is seen as highly offensive.
Really and the way in which he's been able also to encourage and lead to far right parties, to disrupt (INAUDIBLE), it's really the question of trust. And on every issue, it seems that he is unable to keep the ship going in one single direction.
And for people living in Europe and for those who are members of the European Union, the question of trade and tariffs and sanctions is incredibly problematic. The future of the Iran deal is incredibly problematic. And of course climate control, Syria, the Middle East: these are the stories that shape the daily news across the Atlantic.
VAUSE: And just to bring it full circle, it seems George H.W. Bush was a president and a CIA director and a vice president and a senator. He spent his entire life building this post-World War II system, which the U.S. created.
Donald Trump, in many ways, seems to be the president who's trying to tear it apart.
GENOVESE: They used to call President Bush the Rolodex president, that he would go through his Rolodex and knew everyone and could call everyone. Donald Trump doesn't have that ability.
VAUSE: Absolutely. Dominic and Michael, thank you.
GENOVESE: Thank you.
THOMAS: Thank you.
SESAY: A quick break here. Some additional U.S. humanitarian aid is on the way to Rohingya refugees, but millions more are needed to ease the crisis facing hundreds of thousands of people.
VAUSE: And now pre-monsoon rains are falling on the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, an ominous sign of far worse to come. The very latest in just a moment.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [00:25:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
VAUSE: While the details are being hashed out on Friday's historic summit between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea...
SESAY: On Monday, officials from both countries met on the North Korean side of the border in the border truce village of Panmunjom, they formed part of the coverage will be broadcast live.
VAUSE: Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis says North Korea's decision to suspend its nuclear and missile tests is a step in the right direction and that possible talks with President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEN. JAMES MATTIS, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Right now, I think there's a lot of reasons for optimism that the negotiations will be fruitful. And we will see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Ivan Watson joins us now from Seoul, South Korea.
Let's start with the logistics, both sides will have their turn to stage rehearsals at the Peace House at Panmunjom. And there's also this agreement in place now on protocol, security as well as media coverage.
So what are the details?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is going to a very carefully stage-managed event, John, and you have three days of rehearsal, starting today, which some of them will involve officials from both sides, from North and South Korea.
They clearly want to make sure that all of this is going to go off without a hitch. We have learned that, for instance, they've agreed to allow the South Korean press to go north of the demarcation line into North Korean territory.
And from there they'll be able to live broadcast the arrival of Kim Jong-un there and presumably his approach and crossing the demarcation line to the southern side in this Panmunjom border compound, where the summit is going to be held on Friday.
And the South Korean government is very heavily promoting this as an historic moment for potentially world peace. Take a listen to an excerpt from what the South Korean foreign minister had to say this week about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KANG KYUNG-WHA, SOUTH KOREAN FOREIGN MINISTER: President Moon Jae-in of the South will greet Chairman Kim Jong-un of the North for a daylong meeting in the south side of the truce village of Panmunjom.
It will be the first time in the 70 years' division of the peninsula for the top leader of the North to step foot south of the military demarcation line. And it is only the third summit between the two sides, the first in 2000 and the second in 2007.
Furthermore a first-ever summit meeting between the United States and North Korea is also in the making. These are truly historic events that could bring about a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, which has been the ardent dream of the Korean people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATSON: We've also learned there's going to be an official welcoming ceremony, then the summit meeting and then a welcome dinner. The South Korean side will be hosting a planning committee from the Northern side. And we still don't know yet whether the leaders will be bringing their wives to this event -- John and Isha.
VAUSE: And Ivan, with those, especially the talks themselves, U.S. president seems to believe the North Koreans have already agreed to denuclearization. He tweeted that out again this past Sunday.
Is there any official word from the North Koreans to support that?
WATSON: No. Not at all. So if he thinks that they've agreed to denuclearization, to getting rid of their nuclear weapons, maybe there was some agreement reached behind closed doors during the CIA director Mike Pompeo's secret trips to Pyongyang at the beginning of the month.
[00:30:00]
WATSON: But from what we officially heard from North Koreans, John, they are suspending nuclear weapons tests, suspending long-range ballistic missile launches. But they are doing this while also celebrating the fact that they have become a nuclear powered state, which makes it a little hard to believe they would negotiate away their nuclear weapons immediately.
VAUSE: It does seem hard to believe. I guess we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. Ivan, thank you, Ivan Watson live there in Seoul.
With that, we'll take a short break. We'll be back right after this.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
VAUSE (voice-over): You're watching CNN live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
SESAY (voice-over): And I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour:
(HEADLINES)
SESAY: On Monday, the U.S. announced a further $50 million in aid for Rohingya refugees camped in squalid conditions in Bangladesh. The aid comes at an especially desperate time with the onset of monsoon rains that threaten to inundate the camps.
Daphne Cook is communications and media manager for Rohingya Response at Save the Children. She joins us now from Cox's Bazaar in Bangladesh.
Daphne, thank you for joining us. We saw the first of those pre- monsoon rains a few days ago. Talk to me about the impact they've had in the camps.
DAPHNE COOK, SAVE THE CHILDREN: Sure, so as the fears after the first storms hit last week on Thursday, we already saw some flooding and some access routes affected. These camps are home to over 700,000 newly arrived Rohingya. And they're still living in huts made of bamboo and tarpaulins.
So it's really concerning to see how quickly the first rains affected life in the camps. And indeed, I went out on Saturday and I met a Rohingya woman who said that her shelter was completely destroyed by the winds and she was being supported then to be able to rebuild her home.
SESAY: To your point, these are pre-monsoon rains. It wasn't a lot of rain compared to the predictions --
[00:35:00]
SESAY: -- of what lies ahead. But when you see what this little bit of rain did, what does that say to about what these refugees are potentially facing when the winds and the rains really pick up?
COOK: Yes, these rains signal even harder times for Rohingya families and children. People are scared. Children are scared. And you have to remember this is the children's emergency, over 55 percent of the people in these camps are children. And children remember what it was like when they first arrived in Bangladesh last year and they couldn't get dry.
Many children suffered from skin infections that left them with scars because their skin never had a chance to dry out.
SESAY: I know that for the kids, as you say, they're scared. Many of them have never been in a situation in a camp, let along face a monsoon before. (INAUDIBLE) making some specific preparations for the young in these places and I know that you're giving them ID bracelets, identification bracelets.
Talk to me about that, the thinking and why that's considered a priority.
COOK: So as you say, for months now, Save the Children has been working with the government of Bangladesh and other agencies to make sure communities are prepared for this looming crisis.
And we're particularly concerned about children because children are much more vulnerable than adults. They're more vulnerable to getting separated in a storm. And they're more vulnerable to diseases.
So things like these bracelets, we're working with other agencies to provide kids with ways of basically being identified if they get lost because you may know, your listeners may know that when you have a monsoon rain, it's not just a small storm. It's a downpour. Visibility goes low. Flash flooding happens very quickly.
So we're putting systems in place to make sure that, if kids get separated, they can reconnect with their families as quickly as possible.
SESAY: I know that thousands of people in these camps have built their homes in low-lying areas and now they're at direct risk once the monsoon season really kicks in.
Not everyone can be relocated ahead of the heavy rain. So talk to me about what's happening, what you guys are doing to effectively minimize the loss of life in these areas.
COOK: So Save the Children has been working around the clock. We distributed what we call shelter upgrade kits, which are basically really strong bamboo poles, tarpaulins and ropes. And we've been working with communities to strengthen their houses.
Sometimes we're building them from the ground up. We've been improving critical infrastructure like drains and bridges. I'm happy to say that there are sandbags everywhere in the camps.
And then in the last month or so, we're seeing concrete. So we are really trying to stabilize that fragile soil to make sure that people can still get around once it starts to really downpour.
SESAY: And do people know where to go, what to do when things really turn bad, as is expected during this monsoon season?
COOK: So messages have been going out to community leaders and to families over the past months, basically to help them plan for when the rains do get severe. So people now are working to get strategies in place.
For example, making sure their valuables are in plastic bags so when it starts to get raining it doesn't get flooded, their ID cards don't get flooded. And they're also working with community leaders to make sure that if there is flash flooding, which is what we expect, there will have friends or people in their community that they can go to on higher, safer ground so that they can get through those instances without loss of life.
SESAY: Daphne Cook with Save the Children, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm thinking about everyone out there and wishing you the best.
COOK: Thank you.
VAUSE: OK. It's a baby boy for Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge! When we return, how Britain is greeting the arrival of the newest member of the royal family.
SESAY: He's a cutie.
VAUSE: Yes.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:40:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
SESAY: Baby news.
(CROSSTALK)
SESAY: Is that your trumpet sound?
VAUSE: It's like the telegram, like breaking news, like...
SESAY: You are old.
VAUSE: I know.
SESAY: (INAUDIBLE) Prince William and his wife, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, welcomed their third child on Monday.
It's a baby boy who doesn't have a name just yet. It's fifth in line to the throne.
VAUSE: OK. CNN's Max Foster reports the royal couple's new arrival, as you imagine, caused quite a stir.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new royal baby boy, the third child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the queen's sixth great-grandson. Seven hours after giving birth, the Duchess of Cambridge introduced her youngest son to the world.
Dressed in red, standing next to Prince William and holding her newborn, she waved and smiled to the waiting cameras and the well- wishers.
The announcement of the birth was made on Twitter, which was consequently flooded with congratulatory messages. The traditional easel proclaiming the birth placed on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.
First visitors to the newborn were his brother and sister, George and Charlotte. It was Prince William who'd been in the delivery room, who left the hospital to collect them. They arrived walking by their father's hand and entered the building, not before Charlotte gave a little wave to the press and the crowds.
Thrice the worry now, William said, as he stepped into drive his wife and baby back home to Kensington Palace.
(APPLAUSE)
FOSTER (voice-over): The excitement outside the hospital was palpable. Some royal fans had been waiting for this moment for days.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been absolutely (INAUDIBLE). I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) is absolutely fantastic, a happy, healthy prince.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) and I'm so glad it was today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very excitement about the royal family. I've never seen them before so (INAUDIBLE).
FOSTER (voice-over): The new baby is fifth in line to the throne. He's the first male not to step in front of his older sister in the line of succession. In the past, royal sons took precedence over their female siblings. But the law was recently updated.
Now we await the name, expected in the next couple of days -- Max Foster, CNN, Kensington Palace, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SESAY: What do you think about the name?
VAUSE: Well, the queen has to approve it.
SESAY: Oh, I know that. But what are you thinking in terms of --
VAUSE: Robert.
(LAUGHTER)
VAUSE: I have no idea.
SESAY: Well, you'll find out here --
(CROSSTALK)
SESAY: -- on baby name watch now.
VAUSE: So there's an heir and a spare and a spare.
SESAY: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay.
VAUSE: I'm John Vause. Stay with us now. "WORLD SPORT" is next. You're watching CNN.
