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Italy Holds State Funeral For Earthquake Victims; Turkish Soldier Killed In Attack Near Jarablus; Turkey Steps Up Military Operation In Syria; Trump Links Shooting Death To Black Vote. Aired 2- 2:30a ET
Aired August 28, 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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[02:00:42] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: That's all ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for joining us. We are live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen.
People in Italy have begun burying some of those killed in Wednesday's devastating earthquake. The country held a state funeral on Saturday. It was also a national day of mourning. Almost 300 people are dead and more are still missing.
The quake reduced one town to rubble and badly damaged other. Rescue operations are ongoing, but there is little hope left of finding anyone alive.
Senior international correspondent, Atika Shubert, was there for Saturday's funeral.
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ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The school gymnasium turned makeshift chapel fit for a state funeral. Three rows of coffins, 35 in all. Each with a bouquet of flowers and a photo of the person lost in Italy's devastating earthquake.
Beside them, family members, many of them survivors themselves. Their broken limbs in cast, their faces bruised and bandaged. Their eyes red and swollen from crying.
Italy's prime minister and president attended offering condolences to those who lost loved one and conveying their gratitude to the firefighters, police and emergency medics that pulled survivors from the rubble.
Bishop (inaudible) led the service mentioning victims by name, including Julia Rinaldi (ph), the young girl who died shielding her 4- year-old sister Georgia as their summer home collapsed.
Georgia survived with minor injuries. Julia did not. Maria Kamachi (ph) lost friends and family in the earthquake. She and her husband used their bare hands to dig neighbors out of the rubble. Community is very important, she told us. In small villages like this, the relationship with the land, with those you love, with your family, is very, very strong. It will be even stronger, we won't give up.
There will be more funerals. The death toll from the earthquake continues to climb into the hundreds as more bodies are discovered in the rubble. This funeral is only among the first. A national day of mourning for the country to come together and begin the process of healing and rebuilding. Atika Shubert, CNN, Italy.
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ALLEN: Rockets were fired at Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakir Airport Saturday night. Turkey's state run news blames a Kurdish militant group known as the PKK for the attack. No casualties or injuries have been reported and flights have not been disrupted.
Turkish officials say one of their soldiers was killed Saturday when two Turkish tanks were hit by rocket fire in Syria. Three soldiers were wounded. Turkish forces helped Syrian rebels retake Jarablus from ISIS earlier this week and that was part of a larger ongoing operation to secure the Turkish border with Syria.
At first glance it being looks like Turkey is simply ramping up the fight against ISIS in Syria, but as our Nick Paton Walsh explains there are some other motives at play.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The prime minister was pretty clear in suggesting a fairly wide scope of the operation. He made a reference to Jarablus, that is a town taken from ISIS on the border.
(Inaudible) is another town substantially to its west, which actually is located right below the major border crossing known as (inaudible). That area has had Turkish friendly Syrian rebels in it for quite some time, but it's been separated from Jarablus obviously because ISIS have controlled that turf.
What we are hearing is the Turkish backed Syrian rebels have been moving west into villages along that border area and according to the deputy prime minister appeared to have an end goal of reaching (inaudible) establishing this (inaudible) Jarablus line.
That's a pretty big sway of territory for them to hold and it would, of course, give those Syrian rebels who often lacked a proper foothold quite a bit of border as their own territory.
They moved southwest towards the area and also held by the major stronghold in the area. But also potentially too out east towards Manbij. Now Manbij after U.S. assurances has technically been released or given back to the local population by the Kurds backed by the United States known as the SDF. [02:05:08]A force that the U.S. put together to fight ISIS because they are effective, because they were disciplined on the ground. It has some Sunni-Arabs in it, but it's mostly Kurdish.
There are people left behind in control of Manbij who the Kurds say are basically local fighters. We are hearing also that the new clashes south of Jarablus potentially between these forces that the Kurds left behind, who are partially Kurds and Kurdish backed, and also the Syrian rebel units that have moved into Jarablus.
That is still playing out now, but it's another dangerous dynamic but most importantly we are getting a sense really of the sheer scope of this Turkish operation. It's about taking a pretty big part of this border.
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ALLEN: Nick Paton Walsh for us there. CNN military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona says Turkey is planning for what will happen after ISIS.
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LT. COLONEL RICK FRANCONA (RETIRED), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: the Turks are not worried about what is happening right now in Syria. They are worried what's going to happen a year from now, two years from now when ISIS is defeated.
And I think everybody understands that some point ISIS is going to be defeated. You can see it happening in Iraq probably in the next year and soon after that in Syria. Everybody is vying for positions on what will happen post ISIS.
The Kurds are also doing this as well. They are staking out as much territory as they can in both countries because they are angling for much more territory, autonomy and a unified Kurdish area up there across Northern Syria and Northern Iraq.
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ALLEN: Turkey may continue to get more involved as it reacts to what the Kurdish forces accomplish. Libyan forces are also fighting ISIS. Officials in Libya say they nearly regained control of Sirte. It's been under ISIS control since last year.
Sirte was the hometown of the former Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan troops say U.S. air strikes are helping. Reports also say the last group of militants are now confined to just one area in the city center.
In the race for the White House, Donald Trump is trying to court black voters by pointing to the killing of an NBA all-star's cousin. Nykia Aldridge was shot in the head in Chicago on Friday while pushing her infant in a stroller.
She was the cousin of the Chicago Bulls' Dwyane Wade. Trump referenced her death and tweeted this Saturday, "Dwyane Wade's cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will vote Trump." Trump also brought up Aldridge's death on the campaign trail.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The cousin of NBA star, Dwyane Wade, a great guy, Dwayne Wade, was the victim of a tragic shooting in Chicago. She was the mother of four and was killed while pushing her infant child in a stroller walking down the street. Shot.
It breaks all of our hearts to see it. It's horrible. It's horrible and it's only getting worse. This shouldn't happen in our country. This shouldn't happen in America.
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ALLEN: Trump on Saturday also pushed back against Hillary Clinton's efforts to link him to the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan. He retweeted a supporter's post that Clinton said a KKK member was her mentor.
Speaking in Iowa, he also dredged up Clinton's past use of the term super predators to argue he is actually black, the best choice for president. Accusations have flown this week between the two candidates with both tying the other to racism.
Terrifying moments for passengers in a Turkish highway under pass. They did not pass through. Derek has got that report.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's right. They got stopped by a wall of water. It came up so quickly. Natalie, we've got the just moments after video. You can see rescuers trying to push some of the stranded vehicles and passengers out of this tunnel.
But can you imagine traveling underneath a tunnel say 100 meters long, you are in the middle of a very busy city, being the capital of Turkey, Ankara?
All of a sudden the water goes from 5 centimeters to 10 centimeters on the ground to over a meter, almost two meters rising to the tops of people's cars. That is terrifying.
I would not want to be in the middle of that because there's simply just nowhere to go. Fortunately the water didn't go high enough to completely submerge the vehicles, but you can just imagine how scary those moments mush have been.
Because that is flash flooding and that just shows you how dangerous it can be. I want to show you something because the thermometers are skyrocketing across some parts of Europe.
As the moment you saw that in (inaudible) France 40 degrees on that digital thermometer. I should say it's all thanks to the southwesterly flow that we've had building in across France. Now making its way into central and eastern parts of Europe as well. [02:10:05]But only one more day of the heat so I am here to pass along some good news. If you are in Berlin, enjoy the very hot temperatures. You have a big change. We will drop 10 or 12 degrees Celsius through the course of the day and it's all thanks to a cold front that is sweeping across this region.
You'll see the warmth kind of getting suppressed further and further to the south of the Mediterranean. That shading of green indicating of course a cooler weather.
Now one area of the United Kingdom that is taking advantage of the beautiful summer weather, and you can see the wind turbines next to a tall this ship. If you have never seen one of these, go check it out. It is fantastic. They are set to set sail across the ocean near Sweden over the next coming days.
A quick update on Typhoon Lionrock because this system continues to intensify. People along mainland Japan need to monitor this very closely, 205 kilometer per hour sustained winds. All of our computer models are showing some sort of northwesterly turn within the next two to three days.
It will start to weaken, however that doesn't mean it won't be a potent storm by the time it makes landfall on the east coast of Japan. Again, that's heading into the early parts of next week. The timeline 48 hours out. Tokyo and Sendai included with them, that path of uncertainty. Something they need to monitor very closely.
ALLEN: Before we go, you have ever wished a pizza would fall from the sky? This will seem like a dream come true. Here it comes. Domino's Pizza hopes to soon begin food deliveries by drone in New Zealand.
Customers will be notified when the drone is approaching and they can go outside, hit a button on their smartphone, and the drone will lower the pizza. There are some issues to sort out, but Domino's says test deliveries to customers will begin next month. Bring it on.
VAN DAM: Thick and thin crust? Can you imagine being at a festival and having pizza dropped from the sky?
ALLEN: That's all we need. Thanks for watching. "MARKET PLACE AFRICA" is next.
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