Return to Transcripts main page

CNN 10

Tensions in Venezuela About Juan Guaido Returning; Gangs Are Collecting Money from Venezuelans Re-Entering From Colombia; Trash Pile in South Korea Has Been On Fire for Three Months; Steepest Dive Rollercoaster to Open in Canada Theme Park

Aired March 04, 2019 - 04:00   ET

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

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: A new week of news coverage on CNN 10 begins with a look at the politics and the plight of the people of Venezuela. I`m

Carl Azuz. Thank you for giving us 10 minutes of your Monday. Part of Venezuela`s crisis has to do with its government. President Nicolas Maduro

began a second term as president earlier this year but the political groups that oppose him say the election he won wasn`t free and fair. President

Maduro has said his presidency is truly democratic. But after his second term began a Venezuelan law maker named Juan Guaido who called his nation`s

government a dictatorship declared himself to be the new temporary leader of Venezuela and other nations began taking sides.

The U.S., Europe and most of the countries around Venezuela have spoken out against President Marudo and in support of Guaido while Bolivia, Cuba and

Russia have said they`re being President Maduro. One thing everyone will be watching for is what happens when self declared leader Guaido returns to

Venezuela this week. He`s been traveling through South America working to increase support for a peaceful change in Venezuela`s leadership. He`s

also met with U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence while he was in Colombia but Guaido`s trip abroad had been banned by Venezuela`s Supreme Court. So the

question of whether he`ll be arrested when he returns and how people inside and outside Venezuela will react is hanging with heavy tension in the air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After important meetings here in Bogota with Vice- President Mike Pence the opposition, self declared leader, the self declared interim-president of Venezuela Juan Guaido had a stark choice to

make. Was he going to stay here and draw up international support, effectively a leader in exile? Or go back to the country he says he`s

president of? I asked him what his choice was going to be when I caught up with him earlier on. Thank you for your time sir. Do you intend to go

back to Venezuela this week?

JUAN GUAIDO (TRANSLATED): Yes. We are going to return to Venezuela this week. We`ve had a very interesting international agenda this week. The

humanitarian community in Kolkata, the meeting of the Lima group here in Bogota with important results, they were able to see that the crisis is

evident but that the regime denies it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now in that interview he said that yes he did fear arrest when he landed and he did fear for his own safety (inaudible) his

own life but compared his potential risk to the plight of thousands of Venezuelans every single day. Many he said dying from lack of basic

medicines. He also said that if anything happened to him the price would potentially be too high for the Maduro government to pay. Still in the

days ahead, we`ll learn how he`s going to do this and certainly will the Maduro government let him in freely and safely to quote the words in the

demand to the U.S. Special Representative to Venezuelan crisis Elliott Abrams.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Now a look at how this had impacted Venezuela`s people. Their nations economy is wrecked. Critics blame the socialist policies of

Venezuela`s last two presidents plus the falling price of oil which is crucial to the country`s revenues. Inflation is soaring. Last year,

prices on things like food doubled every 19 days. Venezuelan troops loyal to President Maduro recently blocked truckloads of supplies from entering

the country.

Guaido says they`re needed. That Venezuela`s food and medicine shortages are getting worse. President Maduro says there`s no crisis in Venezuela

and that the supplies are part of a U.S. attempt to overthrow his government. Still, many Venezuelans are crossing borders to get what they

can.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK PATON WALSH, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lifeline crossing barricaded, formally closed but here at the Colombia-Venezuela border is

still bustling and in the distance people seem to be getting across. How? Clashes exactly a week ago closed that border. It`s now almost fortified

but people desperate to get food back to their loved ones inside Venezuela, well they found another way. Down we follow the tide as Colombian police

stand calmly by. These are steps of necessity of desperation by people in need of everything.

Endless in number down to the riverbank but these don`t seem to be steps of just salvation helped as they are at first. Across the border, past the

tree line we are told are sometimes Venezuelan soldiers but mostly gangs who charge for each crossing. Fifty cents per person and $2 equivalent if

you`re carrying goods. "Cars and trucks wait for me over there he says, it`s mostly just guys not soldiers. It`s pesos they ask for, another adds

it`s not soldiers. I don`t know who gets the money". The dead to back to be buried in their homeland and the living feel the slow collapse of their

homeland bury them.

Traffic, both ways, but with one shared Venezuelan burden if you leave it`s more or less empty handed. Yet those who go back, well they do so with

pretty much everything they can carry. Up on the bridge where thousands once crossed daily are the pellets fired last week to keep opposition

protestors back who below still carry on with their skirmishes. Defenses of people who`s world is measured in varying degrees of nothing and who`s

suffering here finds only further exploitation. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kolkata, Columbia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. In which of these countries would you find the Nakdong River? South Korea, North Korea, Vietnam or Thailand. The Nakdong

is the second longest river in South Korea. It`s found in the south eastern part of the country.

For three months now, fire fighters in South Korea have been battling blazes in an unusual place, a giant horseshoe shaped trash pile. Eleven

years ago a recycling business owner was given a permit to keep 2,000 tons of waste there. But in 2016, residents complained that trash was

overtaking the area and the permit was cancelled. After the site was sold to someone else in 2017, the previous owner was accused of dumping more

than 80 times the amount of garbage allowed at the site and the problem like the trash heap itself has flared up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: One hundred and seventy thousand tons of illegal waste, dumped on prime farming land. A health

risk and an eyesore, South Korea is struggling to deal with its own rubbish. Pak Yun Soon (ph) has farmed here for 10 years. Her greenhouses

are just meters from the expanding dump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (TRANSLATED): First of all there`s the dust she tells me. The greenhouses, a shell of plastic sheeting, the dust covers it up,

blocks the light and my eggplants are starting to grown mold (ph).

HANCOCKS: Since December the dump is now starting to self combust. A years old waste decomposes, it produces flammable and toxic gases. Workers

and fire fighters dowse the fire with water only to see it reignite elsewhere. The smell of burning household waste, of burning plastic,

construction materials is really quite unpleasant and this is the winter time. It`s subzero temperatures at the moment. Just imagine what this is

like in the summer.

One of those who lives very close by says she hasn`t opened her windows in the past two years. The company that owns this dump changed hands just

over a year ago. The CEO tells CNN the previous owner dumped almost 170,000 tons of mostly illegal mixed waste at market rates that could raise

more than $20 million. We were unable to contact him. Local officials says he`s under investigation. They first took legal action five years ago

to limit him to his original permit of a small storage site for recyclables.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (TRANSLATED): The government has now had to allocate a budget of $5 million for this one official tells me. We plan to remove

21,000 tons of waste within the year.

HANCOCKS: Illegal dumping is happening across the country and beyond. This is Mindanao in the Philippines. Sixty-five hundred tons of waste that

a South Korean company had claimed was recyclable plastic synthetic flakes, in reality it`s filled with batteries, straws, electronic products, used

diapers. After pressure from local environment groups, the South Korean government again had to step in and pay for its repatriation. China`s

decision to accept less of the world`s waste and unscrupulous companies illegally to make money means South Korea has a new waste reality to deal

with. Paula Hancocks, CNN, Wilson Kanchi (ph), South Korea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: A dive rollercoaster is one that drops at 90 degrees. Meaning you`re diving straight down as opposed to a less steep downhill angle and

this is going to be the tallest, fastest and longest dive coaster in the world when it`s finished. It`s called the Yukon Striker. It`s set to open

this spring at Canada`s Wonderland Theme Park. Its main plunge is 245 feet straight down and its top speed is 80 miles per hour.

So will be the fall out. Some will surely fall for it. And if you`re "thrilling" to "strike" her out for a wild ride, "Yukon"too. But some will

see it and want to "roller" on by if the thought of 90 degrees makes them sweat with their mind or stomach getting twisted up, or off track or thrown

for a loop. They won`t want to ride out this "dive" of a coaster. I`m Carl Azuz for CNN.

END