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iDesk
Olympic Torch Starts Journey through Brazil; Leicester City Fans Ecstatic; U.S. and Russia Work to Extend Truce to Aleppo; ISIS Attacks Peshmerga in Northern Iraq; Obama on Osama bin Laden; Voters Head to the Polls in Indiana; Venezuela in Crisis; Baby Rescued 80 Hours after Building Collapse. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired May 03, 2016 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:00]
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN HOST (voice-over): Ahead at the INTERNATIONAL DESK, the Olympic torch arrives in Brazil.
Leicester City celebrates their football title.
And Donald Trump looks for a big win in Indiana.
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CURNOW: Hello. I'm Robyn Curnow. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. And we start with the Olympic torch off and running in Brazil. It arrived in
the host countries just a few hours ago for a trek that'll take it to hundreds of towns and cities ahead of the August 5th opening ceremony in
Rio; 12,000 runners will carry the torch, everyone from Olympic athletes to everyday working people to a Syrian refugee.
The embattled Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, received the torch at the presidential palace. She faces impeachment proceedings and possible
suspension from office.
Shasta Darlington joins me now live from Brasilia.
Hi, there, Shasta. This torch and its journey is supposed to be an eternal reminder that we're all part of the same humanity. That is a quote.
But where you are, in many ways, it has been overshadowed by the political chaos in Brazil.
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Robyn. This is an eternal reminder that politics will reign, at least for the next
three months, until the Olympics Games kick off.
What we're seeing right behind me, this is actually a pro-government demonstration. These people support President Dilma Rousseff. They do not
want to see her impeached. And they're gathering right here in front the presidential palace to show their support but they're also blocking the
torch.
The torch was supposed to come right alone here. So on the one hand, they want to show their support for the president. But on the other, they're
interrupting an event that was supposed to divert attention away from politics and remind Brazilians that they're now part of this unprecedented
event, the first Olympic Games in South America and it raises the question, how much of this are we going to see over the next three months as the
torch passes through more than 300 cities and towns.
Will we see these spontaneous demonstrations either in favor or against the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff?
And will politics get in the way of the games in the end -- Robyn.
CURNOW: Yes, indeed. Politics and sport aren't supposed to mix but they most certainly do. Someone was holding up a banner up behind you, in many
ways, there's concern that this journey of this torch, as you can see, right across Brazil, is, in many ways, going to reflect the deep discontent
and fractured political debate.
It's going to become like a referendum perhaps on the state of the country.
With that in mind, we also know that this, what we saw earlier today, Dilma Rousseff receiving this torch, that could be one of her last official acts,
public acts.
DARLINGTON: Absolutely, Robyn. She may actually be forced to step down as early as next week to face an impeachment trial. She would be suspended
for 180 days.
And it's ironic because, again, at the ceremony, just an hour ago, we actually saw some excitement, people really getting excited about the
Olympics for perhaps the first time. There was music. The school kids were cheering as the fighter pilots flew overhead.
And this really -- when Brazil won its bid to host the Olympics back in 2009, it was supposed to showcase this emerging economic and political
power on the global stage. And they want to remind Brazilians that they hold a special place in history (INAUDIBLE) that by carrying this torch
around the country, it will remind Brazilians that they should get excited on the one hand and also start buying tickets, since that seems to be one
of the biggest obstacles to the games.
Just over 60 percent of tickets have been sold. A lot more were sold around the same time ahead of the London Games. So they're hoping that
Brazilians will put their political and economic problems aside and start buying those tickets as well -- Robyn.
CURNOW: Yes, thanks so much, keeping an eye on things there in Brasilia, Shasta Darlington, thank you.
An astonishing win for the Leicester City Football Club. The team has nabbed the English Premier League title for the very first time.
Here's the moment that fans learned they were the champions.
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CURNOW (voice-over): What a celebration.
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CURNOW: Christina Macfarlane has been in Leicester all weekend.
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CURNOW: She joins me live.
The partying no doubt will continue until next weekend.
What's the mood like now?
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely right, Robyn. This is the biggest day or biggest few days in Leicester's history. And it's been
an incredibly noisy and raucous morning for us standing here outside the King Power Stadium, the home ground of behind me, where hundreds of fans
have been coming this morning to pay tribute and wanting to be part of the action.
You can hear the cars coming past me here. They've been honking for the past six hours or so, people hanging out of the windows here.
A short while ago an ice cream truck turned up behind me, selling blue ice cream, which was a rather nice touch. And we've had a gospel choir as
well, the Leicester City Gospel Choir, who've been out entertaining the fans.
Now we had a really special moment about half an hour ago, when the football team themselves drove past us on the team bus, being escorted by
the police, waving at the fans here outside the stadium. And we understand that they made one very brief stop to pick up a fan, who looked exactly
like Jamie Vardy, the star striker of this side.
They liked him so much that they picked him off the street, put him on the bus and apparently, according to reports, they've taken him to lunch with
the team, who are now in the city center. I think that's one of my favorite stories of the day.
I just want to bring in one man, who I'm sure will have never have seen anything like this in the history of the city, the vice mayor, Rory.
Rory, what has the last 24 hours been like for you?
RORY PALMER, VICE MAYOR, LEICESTER: Euphoric, amazing, incredible. It's difficult to find the words in many ways. I mean, cliches are made for
days like these. It is a truly historic day. I don't think any of us have ever seen Leicester like this.
The city's never felt like this. It's difficult to find the words to describe what the mood is. You've got the horns and the cheering, all late
into the night last night and first thing this morning. These celebrations are going to go on for quite some time yet, I think.
MACFARLANE: They absolutely are. Now I've had fans asking me this morning or telling me this morning that they really want to see a statue erected to
Claudio Ranieri here outside the stadium. They want to see road names changed.
What are the city planning to honor the -- ?
PALMER: There will absolutely have to be some very careful and serious thought given to how we properly honor the achievements of the football
club this year. Those discussions are taking place now and we'll talk about that at the end of the season. There's two more matches. And I'm
sure the footballers are focused on going out with a bang at the end of this seasons, getting the job done, finishing with two famous victories to
put the icing on the cake of what has been a quite remarkable season.
MACFARLANE: Yes, it's going to be an incredible season here on Saturday, when they play that home match against Everton.
Just how much have this football team put Leicester City on the map?
Because last year, you were in the middle of nowhere, really, in terms of the Premier League.
PALMER: Well, we were almost slipping out of the Premier League this time last year. It's been a huge turnaround. They absolutely help put
Leicester on the map, not just nationally but across the world. There's media in the city today and they've been here for weeks in all parts of the
world it feels like the eyes of the world are on Leicester at the moment. It is a special, special moment for our city.
MACFARLANE: They absolutely are. And I know you're in high demand today, Rory. So we'll let you go, let you get back to it. And I hope up get some
rest tonight. I know you've been up all night.
Robyn, the eyes of the world certainly on Leicester and will be more so next season, when this team take on the Champions League as part of Europe.
CURNOW: Indeed. A lot of fun and, as he said, the icing on the cake. It certainly has been extraordinary, hasn't it?
Christina Macfarlane, thanks to you both.
Coming up on the IDESK, violence has escalated sharply over the past week in the Syrian city of Aleppo. We'll update you on what world powers are
doing to stop the attacks.
And the next 24 hours may be Ted Cruz's last real shot at the White House. We'll go live to Indiana, where voters are casting ballots. Stay with us.
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CURNOW: We are waiting for a potentially big development out of the Syria talks in Geneva. Russia says a cease-fire for the embattled city of Aleppo
could be announced soon. Let's get straight to Moscow. Matthew Chance is standing by.
Hi, there, Matt. We understand that the Russian foreign minister made these comments, saying that an announcement could be imminent in the next
few hours.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He said that a few hours ago and he said that in a few hours, we hope there could
be some kind of an expansion of what he called "the regime of calm" into Aleppo, where there have been, of course, fierce fighting breaking out,
particularly over the past eight or nine days, which has left hundreds of people dead.
Most recently, of course, today, when rebels apparently shelled a hospital in a government-controlled part of the city. And so it's been the focus of
this big diplomatic push that we've been seeing in Geneva yesterday in Switzerland, with the U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, that focus
moving to Moscow today with a meeting between the U.N. special representative to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and the Russian foreign
minister, Sergey Lavrov.
And it's at that joint press conference that the two of them had, where he said he's hoping that this kind of cease-fire agreement can be expanded to
Aleppo soon. Certainly the U.N., others as well, the United States included, I expect, have been putting whatever pressure they can on the
Kremlin to exert their influence on their ally in Syria, the government of Bashar al-Assad, to claw back a bit, to rein in the fighting in Aleppo.
Because, in the words of John Kerry, the Syrian conflict at this stage appears to have got out of control and there's a sense in which they want
to make sure that things don't go to too much in that direction.
So hopefully the Russians will do what they can with the Syrian government to get them to pull back a bit, you know, on this fighting in Aleppo.
Certainly those are the positive signals that were coming out of the press conference a few hours ago.
CURNOW: Yes, indeed. The Kremlin's certainly having a degree of influence over Damascus.
Let's talk about what else came out of that press conference. I'm just going to read the press release or at least our wire, saying that a new --
Lavrov said that a new Russian American center for monitoring the Syria troops will be created in Geneva in the near future.
I mean, what's that about?
What will it look like?
How effective will that be?
Has this happened before?
CHANCE: To be honest, not many details were given about this new center beyond what you've just said. It's going to be a military organization, if
you like, involving the Russian and the American militaries.
Its task, from what Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said to us, is to monitor violations of the Syrian cease-fire, essentially, and to
respond accordingly, although he didn't give any detail on whether the Russian or the American U.S. militaries would be involved in actually
carrying out punitive action when they monitor the cease-fire violation.
I think we have to interpret it as an example of closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russian militaries. Sergey Lavrov said it would be a venue in
which the two militaries can talk to each other about violations of the cease-fire face to face.
So I suppose one consequence of it is that it adds a layer of security; there aren't going to be any misunderstandings when it comes to this very
complicated war zone.
CURNOW: Thank you so much, Matthew Chance, appreciate you joining us there from Moscow.
In Iraq, ISIS launched an early morning assault, attacking Kurdish fighter positions north of Mosul. A U.S. service member just identified as a Navy
--
[10:15:00]
CURNOW: -- SEAL was killed. The Pentagon says the service member had been advising Peshmerga forces and was several kilometers back from the front
lines. The offensive shows that even though ISIS has lost territory, it does continue to push forward.
For more on this, let's bring in CNN military analyst and former U.S. military attache, Rick Francona joins us. He joins us by Skype from
Oregon.
Thanks so much for joining us, Rick.
What do you make of this incident, ISIS breaking through Peshmerga front lines?
What does this tell you?
What do you make of what played out on the ground?
LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, this is an interesting development. This area has been under Peshmerga control for
some time now. And we really didn't expect this kind of activity from ISIS up there. They're more focused on trying to break through on the other
side of Mosul, to reestablish their supply lines over into Syria.
So this was a kind of a surprise and it was typically what ISIS does. They have vehicle-born IEDs that create a breach in the lines and then they
rush through. They were able to get through far enough back to where this U.S. Navy SEAL was providing his support to the Kurds.
And, unfortunately, he was killed in the ensuing conflict. Airpower was called in to push them back. But this just shows us how dangerous ISIS
still is, how quickly they can mount these very, very quick attacks, very violent, and can kill a lot of people very quickly. It just shows they're
not down and out as -- people get -- they tend to get complacent when they see that ISIS is being rolled up in different areas and they forget that
the Peshmerga, even as good as they are, can be surprised by the ISIS fighters.
CURNOW: Yes, we know, our own reporters in the region have shown us just how compromised or not so great the Peshmerga weaponry is. So there's good
reason why these U.S. Special Forces are on the ground, trying to direct fighting.
But you mentioned air support. I see there's one report that the U.S. official says that 23 airstrikes involving F-15s and drones were called in
with this firefight. That seems like a lot.
FRANCONA: Well, if you're on the ground, you can never have enough. But they had to close that breach: they had to get these fighters back out of
there and reestablish the line. The fact that they brought that many in that quickly indicates that probably he was not the only American there.
There were probably other American Special Forces there, special operations people, who could have controlled those airstrikes and reestablished the
line.
But, unfortunately we've lost another U.S. service man up here. This makes three since this advise and assist mission began.
CURNOW: I just want to slightly change direction. Our correspondent in Moscow was briefing us on this Russia announcement that there might be an
imminent cease-fire renewal in Aleppo.
The one caveat in that press release or in the wire that we got was that there's going to be this joint U.S.-Russia center in Geneva to monitor the
cease-fire.
What do you make of that?
How unusual is this kind of military coordination between the U.S. and Russia?
How well do you think that's going to work?
FRANCONA: Well, I don't think it's going to work at all. We've been talking about this for months now.
When the original cease-fire went into effect a few months ago, there were supposed to be these centers set up. We were going to set one up in Amman
to talk to the Russians and nothing has ever happened. And these centers tend to be just areas where everybody vents their grievances and nothing
really happens.
Having it in Geneva just removes it that much further from the theater of operations. I don't put much stock in this. The Syrian army, with their
Russian support, are going to take the city of Aleppo. I think Aleppo will fall to the regime very shortly. And I think Russians are going to do
everything they can to allow that to happen for the Syrians.
So I don't put much stock in this announcement from Foreign Minister Lavrov today.
CURNOW: OK, thank you. Thanks for your perspective there, Rick Francona.
U.S. President Barack Obama defended America's approach to fighting terror. He spoke with CNN security analyst Peter Bergen surrounding the fifth
anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. They walked through the room where he watched that operation unfold. They discussed the terror
threat as well moving forward.
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PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: What keeps you up at night now and what should the next president be most concerned about?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that we have built an incredible structure of cooperation between intelligence, military, law
enforcement that has hardened the American homeland.
And the capacity of an organization like an ISIL or an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to carry out a big, catastrophic attack is much lower.
But as we've seen, you now have a proliferation of groups; because of the power of social --
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OBAMA: -- media, there is a mechanism to recruit volunteers that are already located in the West that are much more difficult, precisely because
they don't engage in the same kind of planning.
And what that means is that we've got to continue to be vigilant. It means that we've got to go after ISIL in its core, where it allows itself to
maintain the illusion that somehow it's on the march.
It's going to be important for us ultimately to take them out of Mosul, to take them out of Raqqah, make sure that they don't have those kinds of safe
havens where they can pretend that they're a state in some fashion. That will diminish their appeal.
But we're going to have small groups, lone actors, who, for some time, will continue to find this perverted ideology appealing. And we have to be
prepared for that. We have to be resilient and not react in ways that makes the problem worse rather than better.
We have to understand that the kinds of Special Forces and intelligence gathering that we saw in the bin Laden raid is going to be, more often than
not, the tool of choice for a president in dealing with that kind of threat; that sending 100,000 troops to invade every country where an
organization like this appears is going to be counterproductive and, in some ways, feeds the kinds of ideology that we're fighting.
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CURNOW: And you can read more from Peter Bergen's fascinating interview with Barack Obama. That's at cnn.com/politics.
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CURNOW: Voters in the U.S. state of Indiana are now casting ballots in the presidential primary election. What they decide could seal the Republican
race for the White House. Though candidate Ted Cruz does not like to think so. Our Sara Murray joins us now from Indiana.
Hi, there. Let's talk first, though, about Donald Trump, as he keeps on reminding folks this could be done and dusted by the end of the day.
Then what?
SARA MURRAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are going to see if Donald Trump is able to effectively wrap up his nomination right here. And that is what
Trump thinks he's well positioned to do. His campaign feels very confident going into Indiana primary day.
And yesterday on the campaign trail, Trump says, if he wins this in Indiana, he's basically got the primary wrapped up.
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DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The biggie is going to be Indiana because if we win in Indiana, it's over with, folks, it's over
with. And then we focus on Hillary Clinton.
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MURRAY: Now obviously Ted Cruz realizes this could be a make-or-break day for his campaign. He's had basically every high profile surrogate that's
backing him, crisscrossing the state, trying to eke out a victory in just the final hours here.
And he made his closing argument on the campaign trail, essentially saying he's the guy who has conservative principles and Donald Trump is a liar.
Take a listen.
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SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: You want someone who has struggled, someone who has known loss. You want someone who is honest, who tells the truth and
doesn't lie all the time. You want someone who stands by their principles. You want someone who has principles.
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MURRAY: Now you can see the Cruz campaign has basically been throwing everything they've got at Indiana, a last-ditch effort, they know that if
Donald Trump wins here, he's essentially on pace to clinch the nomination.
Of course, he will still need to pick up some delegates in California to make it official. But it would be very hard to stop him from getting 1,237
delegates before Cleveland, still Cruz insists he's going to go all the way to Cleveland, no matter what happens here in Indiana today. Back to
you, Robyn.
CURNOW: So indeed, Ted Cruz, still sticking by, even Kasich will have to see what kind of pressure they come under to pull out.
Let's talk about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. He's back on attacking her for being a woman, basically. But his kitchen sink approach to his
attacks, coming from all angles, it's going to be interesting to see post- Indiana where there might now be a shift to general election, how Clinton responds to these kinds of attacks.
I mean, certainly no ordinary campaign.
MURRAY: Well, I think what you've seen in Donald Trump sort of settling in to this idea in his mind that he's already the presumptive nominee.
He's already got his eye on Hillary Clinton as his --
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MURRAY: -- likely general election opponent. And I think that some Republican cringe when they see Trump going after Hillary Clinton,
essentially on gender politics, saying the only reason she's winning is because she's a woman.
But he tried out a different line of attack yesterday as he was campaigning across Indiana, hitting Clinton about her judgment, what both it meant in
terms of her private e-mail server and also in terms of Benghazi.
And I thinks that's a line of attack that other Republicans are much more comfortable with, one that they think could potentially be effective in a
general election. So if you're an establishment Republican who is a little wary of Donald Trump going into this, I think that you're happy to see him
making that argument rather than the gender card argument -- Robyn.
CURNOW: OK, thanks so much, Sara Murray there, appreciate it.
Stay with CNN for live coverage of the Indiana primaries throughout the day and for live updates of the results as they come in. That's right here
on CNN.
A young Somalia asylum seeker is in critical condition after setting herself on fire in a refugee camp on the Pacific island of Nauru. Now
refugee advocates say she was one of hundreds of people who have lived for months or years at the processing centers. Ivan Watson explains.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It came just days after she had been deported from Australia to the detention center in
Nauru. So presumably something in that process triggered this desperate act, which is effectively an act of suicide, as we saw with the 23-year-old
Iranian, who also set himself on fire last week.
That, aid organizations say, after he was held at that detention center for some three years and then set himself alight and died several days later in
hospital.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, it had officials at the camp in Nauru when the Iranian set fire to himself. And since then the
UNHCR has come out with a strongly worded statement, calling on Australia to immediately remove some 2,000 refugees and migrants from the detention
center in Nauru and another detention center on the island in Papua New Guinea known as Manus, to move them immediately to more humane conditions.
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CURNOW: Ivan Watson reporting there.
Now the U.N. refugee agency has called Australia's current policy, quote, "immensely harmful and completely untenable."
Coming up at the IDESK, Venezuelans run out of food, medicine and electricity, see the desperate attempts some are taking to provide for
their families.
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CURNOW: Welcome to the INTERNATIONAL DESK. I'm Robyn Curnow. Here's a check of the headlines.
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CURNOW: And Venezuela's economic crisis is so dire people are scrambling to find basic necessities and, in some cases, looking to the black market.
Our Paula Newton joins us now from Caracas.
Hi, there, Paula. You've been speaking to Venezuelans.
What are they been telling you?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good morning, Robyn. I've been coming here for several years. And what we found on the streets is just
extraordinary, Robyn. I mean, every person you speak to -- and it doesn't matter from what stratum of society, it doesn't matter if they even have
money, they literally cannot find the basics to even feed themselves, some of them walking these lines for hours at a time, getting up in the early
morning hours. Take a look as we witness Venezuelans walk that line.
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NEWTON (voice-over): La cola, the line. This is how Venezuelans spend most of their time now, in line not for luxuries but basics: your next
meal, soap for your next load of laundry, diapers for your baby's next nappy change.
"And with a 2-year old, lining up, having to put up with this," she tells me, "we have no milk, we have no diapers, nothing. This is impossible,"
she pleads.
She says she left her home at 4 am, like many here, waiting for government rations that are dwindling, ravaged by hyperinflation, government
mismanagement and an oil crisis.
NEWTON: These types of lines are popping up all over Caracas. People here are looking for flour and pasta. Some were here this morning; they were
told the store had absolutely nothing. And that's the kind of scavenger hunt that's happening throughout Venezuela, people just trying to find the
basics can't find them.
NEWTON (voice-over): We're not allowed to shoot inside but outside people tell us they line up for hours and still get nothing.
"We are hungry, we have needs, we have no food. Look at this line, mothers who are hungry, we need food, medicine. We can't find anything.
"What's finishing us off?
Hunger," she says.
Police are in control here, herding people and making sure they're shopping on their government-allotted two days a week. The only way around this,
buying from a bachaquero, a black market middleman.
We followed one customer on a shopping trip as covert as any drug deal. But he's buying food.
NEWTON: And this is what goes on here. Black markets have opened up in so many neighborhoods. People just can't get the essentials; salt, sugar,
the basics, which they have to try and find on the black market.
NEWTON (voice-over): Products are marked up at more than twice their fair value than on supermarket shelves. It's also illegal, another reason
neither buyer nor seller wish to be identified.
Few can afford it, though, so Venezuelans walk the line, spending much of their lives now in la cola, the queue, already one of the most detested and
humiliating rituals in this country's history.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: And you know as well as that black market, Robyn, this very informal but highly extensive barter system has gone on in neighborhoods.
So, Robyn, you would have two (INAUDIBLE) of pasta. I might have two liters of oil. You and I trade and we might be able to feed our families.
So ironic, we've said it before, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. But right now this is the liquid gold that they
really want, just basic cooking oil that they can't get their hands on -- Robyn.
CURNOW: Yes, and diapers and sugar, as you say. So these kind of shortages we sometimes see in a war zone or in a post-conflict scenario.
How did Venezuela get here?
NEWTON: You know --
[10:35:00]
NEWTON: -- it's difficult to see where they go from here. And you do get the sense that the government is just going from crisis to crisis to
crisis.
At this point in time, we're having an electricity shortage. It is good that the weather hasn't been good. That may help the hydroelectric
projects that really are the lifeblood of this country in terms of electricity.
But they do not seem to have a plan. With the oil price being so low and so then dependent on that oil output, to really be able to get any of those
products into this country, the other thing that is a cruel irony, this country could grow so much of the food that it needs and produce so much of
the food.
Industries have been absolutely devastated. It has to import almost everything. It doesn't have the money to import those things anymore and
already people are talking about the humanitarian crisis worsening.
CURNOW: OK. Great to have you there. Thanks so much for your reporting.
Paula Newton there in Venezuela.
You're watching CNN. Coming up, a miraculous rescue comes days after a building collapses. How emergency teams knew an infant was alive under
this rubble. Stay with us.
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CURNOW: There's a story. Emergency workers are calling it a miracle. Teams have rescued a 6-month-old girl from the rubble of a collapsed
building in the Kenyan capital. She had been buried for 80 hours. CNN's Robyn Kriel is following this extraordinary story. She joins me from
Nairobi.
Hi, there, Robyn. She's been called the baby in the bucket but also you've spoken to her father.
What has he said?
ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, just an incredible story. A small child, one and a half years old, wrapped, as I'm told by rescue officials,
in a light blue blanket with flowers on it and kept in a bucket. That's how she was able to stay alive for a miracle, like almost three days,
Robyn, since Friday night when this building collapsed.
And her father telling us on the phone just how relieved he was that a member of his family survived this tragedy. His wife, in fact, when we
spoke to him, he was at the morgue identifying his wife's body. She, unfortunately, died in this tragedy.
But his baby girl, 1.5-year-old Dealeryn, survived. And he said he had an incredible story about how he was trying to convince the rescue officials
that this was his daughter, he was trying describe what she looked like, how old she was. And he said that they didn't believe him until he
financially walked into the hospital room, Robyn, said her name.
She looked up at him and her eyes looked up. She started cooing and making noises and reached out her hands to him. Rescue officials then said, yes,
we do believe this is your baby girl and they were reunited.
CURNOW: It's heart-stopping isn't it, that she's been alive since Friday night. We see the Red Cross, Kenya Red Cross images of rescue workers --
[10:40:00]
CURNOW: -- digging to get her in that bucket.
How did they know where to look for her, that she was alive even?
KRIEL: Well, fantastic, a miracle. The Kenyan defense forces have been onsite helping out with these rescue efforts. They do have some kind of
imaging and listening equipment device that they were going through, really at this point, they figured it was just a recovery effort. They'd given up
on hopes of a rescue.
And then they said to Kenya Red Cross officials, we do hear breathing. They quickly -- they slowed down, in fact, that portion of the rescue.
They were lifting up things very, very carefully to make sure they didn't damage whoever was underneath.
And suddenly this baby girl was revealed in a little bucket. Now the Kenya Red Cross, it was 4:00 am in Nairobi at the time when this was found. So
it was still dark. They scrambled, they didn't have an ambulance available at that moment because it had just taken another body away; 23 people have
been recovered thus far, 23 bodies, that is.
So the ambulance had just taken one of the bodies away, a female. And then they found this baby. The baby, they said they were very, very worried
about the fact that its lungs might in some way be affected by the dust and the smoke or it might have hypothermia. It has been quite cold here the
last few days.
So they quickly rushed the baby, they made the decision not to wait for an ambulance. They put it in one of their rescue vehicles and took it to the
nearest medical facility, which happens to be a Medecins sans Frontieres facility in a nearby slum.
That's when the baby was checked out. They realized by some miracle that this baby had no problems to it, barely a scratch on it, they said. The
rescue worker described how they were praying in the car and how he was thinking that, if this was his own baby girl, just how he would be
thinking.
He said this child cannot die on me. And eventually they managed to get it to one of the main hospitals, where she was later on reunited with her dad.
CURNOW: Yes, just a little bit dehydrated, I understand. Thanks so much. A glimmer of hope. A little bit of happy news, as the Red Cross said, in
what has been a devastating story there in Nairobi. Appreciate it, Robyn.
Let's go to now South Korea. We might just be seeing the next generation of Buddhist monks. These young boys got their heads shaved as part of a
Buddhist initiation ceremony. They'll stay in a Buddhist temple in Seoul ahead of Buddha's birthday observance a week from Saturday. An instructor
says they'll learn Buddhist teachings and the concepts of understanding and mercy.
And U.S. President Barack Obama is in a royal tongue-in-cheek fight via viral video. You might remember he sent this challenge to Buckingham
Palace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Be careful what you wish for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom.
ELIZABETH I, QUEEN OF ENGLAND: Oh, really?
Please.
PRINCE HARRY: Boom.
CURNOW (voice-over): Boom now. That's a service member who just dropped the mic. And Prince Harry responding with his own dapper mic drop.
Now the schoolyard fight is over the Invictus Games, an event where wounded veterans from around the world compete in sports, of course. Canada's new
leader couldn't shy away from an opportunity to go viral himself. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Oh, hey, I just thought I'd show our friends in the U.S. and in the U.K. how Canada brings it.
Your Majesty, Prince Harry, President and Ms. Obama -- boom!
Orlando, Invictus Games, Canada's ready.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: That's one way to end the show, boom. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Robyn Curnow. "WORLD SPORT" is up next and of course lots more
coverage on Leicester City's big win.
END
