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House Judiciary Committee Holds Marathon Debate on Trump Impeachment Articles; DOJ IG: No Evidence of Political Bias in Russia Probe's Origin; Britain's Pivotal Votes Just Hours Away; FAA Predicted More 737 Max Crashes but Didn't Ground Plane; Suu Kyi Defends Myanmar against Genocide; Volcano Victims' Recovery Planned for Friday; Report: China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt Worst Offenders Against Journalists; Unprecedented Rainfall Inundates African Region. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired December 12, 2019 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause, live from Studio 7 at CNN World Headquarters.
Coming up on CNN: it's been a long night on Capitol Hill and a long day ahead as the House Judiciary Committee prepares to vote on the two articles of impeachment.
Polls open in two hours from now in the U.K., an election that will determine how or even if Britain will leave the European Union.
And damning new information about Boeing's defunct 737 MAX as it turns out U.S. regulators in charge of keeping passengers safe knew the passenger jet had a high risk of crashing.
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VAUSE: We begin this hour with breaking news, a historic moment in Washington as the House Judiciary Committee debates the two articles of impeachment against the U.S. president Donald Trump.
On Wednesday night, 41 committee members speaking for five minutes each arguing both for and against the impeachment articles.
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REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: When the president weakens an ally who advances American security interests by fighting an American adversary, the president weakens America.
And when the president demands that a foreign government investigate his domestic political rivals, he corrupts our elections.
To the founders, this kind of corruption was especially pernicious. Free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy. If our elections are corrupt, everything is corrupt.
If the president can first abuse his power and then stonewall all congressional requests for information, Congress cannot fulfill its duty to act as a check and balance against the executive and the president becomes a dictator.
REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): The big lie that we're hearing perpetrated tonight is the one that the end justifies the means. The lies that the sham impeachment is OK because the threat is so real and so urgent and so imminent.
The big lie is that politically expediency is honorable and justified when history has shown that to be untrue and dangerous.
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VAUSE: This is just the opening statements. The real fireworks are expected on Thursday when Democrat and Republican lawmakers put forward amendments to the articles and vote on them. Once that's done, the committee will send the articles to the House floor for a full vote, expected some time next week.
Meanwhile, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is planning on holding a Senate impeachment trial and vote to acquit the president and not just vote on a motion to dismiss the impeachment articles against Trump.
So while all this happening on Capitol Hill, what is Trump doing right now?
Well CNN's Jeremy Diamond spoke with Don Lemon on Mr. Trump's state of mind.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Publicly we heard the president downplaying this impeachment.
At the rally last night in Pennsylvania, the president was saying that this is impeachment-lite, he called those articles of impeachment pathetic and flimsy, downplaying it essentially, almost mocking Democrats for not coming up with something stronger.
But privately, Don, we're told that the president has been griping about the fact that he is all but certain to become the third president in history to be impeached. This is not a stain on his legacy that he wants. It's something, in fact, that he's been dreading for quite some time.
And so even as the president is publicly downplaying all of this, privately, he's unhappy about it. Even when some of his political advisers have tried to tell him, look, you may not like being impeached, but this could be beneficial to you politically, despite all that, president still unhappy.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Meanwhile, a new Monmouth University poll finds 45 percent of
Americans want to impeach President Trump, half do not.
In the meantime the internal watchdog at the U.S. Justice Department has sharpened its criticism of the FBI but is still standing by its conclusion there was no political bias in the Russia probe.
On Wednesday, IG Michael Horowitz was at the full Judiciary Committee, the senior FBI officials were not biased, he told them, against then candidate Donald Trump when the investigation was launched. But he was critical of how the bureau handled certain parts of the investigation.
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SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): So your report states that you didn't find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation played a role?
MICHAEL HOROWITZ, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: That's correct.
Thank you. And you didn't find a deep state conspiracy against candidates for President Trump?
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HOROWITZ: After the opening, we found no bias, no testimonial in the documents on that.
We found, and as we outlined here, are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate handpicked investigative teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Would you have submitted a warrant application as a lawyer?
HOROWITZ: Let me put it this way. I would not have submitted the one they put in. They certainly misled the -- it was misleading to the court.
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VAUSE: Remarkably the head of the Justice Department attorney general William Barr has publicly rejected some of the IG's findings and continues to back President Trump's claim that the investigation should never taken place.
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VAUSE: Less than two hours from now, before an election begins which could define the future of the U.K., either paving the way for Brexit or putting Britain on course for another referendum and more uncertainty.
This once seemed like a done deal for the prime minister Boris Johnson with his Conservatives holding a firm lead. But the latest predictions show the race could be getting closer than they thought previously with the possibility, no party will actually end up with the majority.
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BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This could not be more critical. This could not be tighter. I just think everybody, the risk is very real that we could tomorrow be going into another hung parliament. That's more drift, more dither, more delay, more paralysis for this country.
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VAUSE: CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas joins us now from Berlin.
Dominic, I want you to watch part of the report from CNN's Matthew Chance, explaining why this election is upend the way politics is played out in Britain for generations. Here it is.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What is happening in this constituency of Dudley is also taking place across the country. Brexit, disillusionment with politics and politicians, turning traditional party loyalties upside down making this British general election particularly tough to fight and hard to protect.
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VAUSE: I guess one of the major things here is that, you know, Brexit is not split along party lines. They're more on the lines of some, you know, pro or anti immigration for example. And that is what is sort of causing a major headache especially for the Labour Party.
DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes, it is. But I mean you could also argue that a lot of these changes have been afloat since really the post Thatcher era where the Blair government increasingly blurred the line around issues that were traditionally the ownership of the right and the left. And particularly as you rightly point out around questions of immigration and security and so on.
And you could argue here that really what Corbyn has been trying to do is to go back to that old model and his proposal of higher taxation, a fairer society, a redistribution of wealth and nationalization and a greater government is a way of going back to those particular positions.
But yes when it comes down to Brexit what has been so complicated about Brexit is that it is not divided that neatly along party lines. This is essentially a system that privileges the two-party system and you have within the Conservative Party, yes, different views on Brexit that some kind consensus around leave that it's within the Labour Party that there are these significant issues around appealing to particular constituencies that want to leave the European Union versus an overwhelming majority that want to remain in it.
VAUSE: So with that in mind Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has pretty much talked about everything on his campaign trail, a magic pudding (ph) approach to government everything except for Brexit in any detail really.
Here he was in Glasgow last night.
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JEREMY CORBYN, BRITISH LABOUR PARTY LEADER: This election is really about a choice. Tomorrow the people who are all across the U.K. will go to vote. And they have a choice.
They can elect a government that they can trust. They can elect a government that will eliminate child poverty across Britain. They can elect a government I will and the cruelty and the injustice of universal credit.
They can elect a government that will give hope to the next generation by investing properly in education for the future all across the U.K. And they can elect the government that will deal with the great issues on the world stage of climate change.
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VAUSE: It just seems that because of Brexit and they don't really have, you know, a sort of understandable position on Brexit or a clear position on Brexit. Those traditional Labour Party supporters are heading towards the Tories in some ways especially, you know, in sort of deep Labour territory.
THOMAS: Yes. And we have seen some of these traditional labor voters throughout Europe go for different far-right parties, different right- wing parties and so on. Ultimately what this election will show, this is of course, you know, another opportunity for the British people to weigh in on this two years after Theresa May's gross miscalculation when she lost the Conservative Party majority.
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THOMAS: But ultimately what we will find out later today and tomorrow is whether Jeremy Corbyn's calculation to be ambiguous around Brexit and to appeal to those Labour members that want to leave the European Union was itself a gross miscalculation or whether he will be rewarded at the ballot box but not only that position that he's arguing around issues in Britain -- the health service and so on and so forth, that the likelihood is that these voters will not go towards him.
They want Brexit and the one party that's been talking about that all along and the one leader has been Boris Johnson. And the likelihood is that he will be rewarded at the ballot box.
VAUSE: Not only has he been talking about Brexit but he's also been in the whole circus of things. There have been a lot of TV stunts from the prime minister. There was one yesterday, when he was asked to appear on ITV's Brexit show, "Good Morning, Britain." Here it is. Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning, Prime Minister.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.
JOHNSON: I only have five minutes.
I'll be with you in a second.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's being taken inside, into the freezer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's gone into the fridge.
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VAUSE: And he didn't come out. He stayed in the fridge. At this point, though, (INAUDIBLE) a bit of a laugh, is that where we're at?
THOMAS: Really, it's tragic obviously because the political stakes are so very high in this election but again he is relying on Brexit fatigue and pushing with this message and the longer the campaign has gone, on the more scrutiny he's been subjected to and the worst off he has come.
This has been his strategy all along when he was running for Tory Party leader he, tried to stay away from the fray and throughout this campaign he's done the same thing. Just repeat the same message and hope for his sake that this ultimately ends up being all around the big question of Brexit.
For him, though, it's is he going to be able to regain that majority that Theresa May lost and if he does, is it going to be substantial enough for him to actually be able to govern?
The likelihood is we just wake up tomorrow morning with a new configuration of Parliament with the same kinds of problems, the same divisions across party lines. And I think that's really the question that we're going to be looking at throughout the day and what the British people are hoping, that they'll be some kind of resolution to this.
VAUSE: I think he has come out of the fridge but he may go back. Dominic, thank you. Appreciate all your coverage.
THOMAS: Thanks, John.
VAUSE: Please join us on Thursday for CNN's special coverage of the results as the polls close starting at 10:00 pm in the U.K.
Voters in Africa's largest country are also casting ballots on Thursday, choosing a new president in what's sure to be a divisive and contentious election. Huge crowds of protesters clashed with police on Wednesday, demanding the vote be canceled. They said the elections will not be fair as long as the military and the old guard of politics are involved.
All five candidates are linked to the former president, who had been forced to resign back in April.
Now Israel perhaps the third time heading to election. The country will hold an unprecedented third round of national polls in 12 months. That's after Knesset was unable to agree on a politician who could get the support of more than half of the parliament. That failure triggered this third election set for March and it means Benjamin Netanyahu will remain the prime minister for at least a few more months.
The U.S. government knew a year ago the Boeing 737 MAX was more likely than others to crash and Boeing was warned by its own employees long before that yet never did anything about it.
The aircraft wasn't grounded until the 737 MAX went down in Ethiopia; five months after that another 737 MAX crashed in Indonesia. On Wednesday the head of the Federal Aviation Administration was confronted with these facts during an intense congressional hearing.
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REP. SEAN MALONEY (D-NY): Are you aware that four months before the first crash you brought these problems to Boeing's attention. You're aware of that gentleman?
Four months --
STEPHEN DICKSON, FAA ADMINISTRATOR: I know that there were --
MALONEY: -- before first crash?
DICKSON: Yes, that concerns are raised. Yes.
MALONEY: That's right. And you understand that after the Lion Air crash, he went up and down the chain at Boeing. He went to the CEO. He went to the general counsel. He went to the board.
Are you aware of that?
He sent them letters, too --
DICKSON: Yes.
MALONEY: -- saying all the same things.
And you know what they did?
They sat on it until a second plane crash, that's what happened, a bunch more people lost their lives.
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VAUSE: CNN's Rene Marsh has more with the FAA and Boeing knew about the 737 MAX and when they knew it.
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RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Serious questions for the FAA and whether they could have prevented the second 737 MAX crash and saved lives. A new document publicly released on Wednesday morning shows internal FAA analysis of the Boeing 737 MAX, following the Lion Air crash last fall.
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MARSH: And it found that the plane is significantly more likely to crash than other aircraft. And predicted it would crash 15 more times. Now that 15 number was a conservative number, because it was based on this assumption that 99 out of 100 flight crews would successfully react to the alarms and alert within just 10 seconds, and we know that that assumption was wrong.
The pilots in both of these crashes were overwhelmed by all of the alerts and all of the alarms and they couldn't react successfully in 10 seconds.
Despite this risk assessment, the findings from this assessment the FAA did not ground the aircraft until after the second crash of the MAX, that was months later.
Now these two crashes, they claimed 346 lives and on top of all of that whistleblowers, one from Boeing and one from the FAA, testified that they raised concerns about internal pressure during the certification process, and how their concerns over safety of the plane were simply ignored.
On top of all of that, more bad news for Boeing today, the head of the FAA said that the plane would not be cleared to fly this year and that this would extend well into 2020 -- Rene Marsh, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: When we come back, defending genocide, Myanmar's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, goes to appeal to the U.N.'s top court, defending the generals accused of ethnic cleansing.
Also ahead, this:
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GEOFF HOPKINS, TOURIST AND TRAINED FIRST RESPONDER: Lots of screaming, you know, panic screaming. Get me out of here. I'm burning.
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VAUSE: A tourist recount the horrific scene in the waters off New Zealand after a deadly volcanic eruption.
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AUNG SAN SUU KYI, MYANMAR STATE COUNSELOR: Regrettably the gambians (ph) placed before the court are incomplete and misleading factual picture of the situation Rakhine state in Myanmar.
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VAUSE: Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, she's also Myanmar's de facto leader, discounting overwhelming evidence of military brutality and rejecting charges of genocide.
She told the U.N.'s highest court that in 2017, military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state was a response to terror attacks on a number of police stations. She seemed impassive when graphic descriptions were told of rape and mass murder just a day earlier.
On Wednesday, she admitted only that disproportionate force could not be ruled out and should be investigated internally.
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SUU KYI: Surely under the circumstances, genocidal intent can not be the only hypothesis.
Under its 2008 constitution, Myanmar has a military justice system, criminal cases against soldiers or officers for possible war crimes committed in Rakhine must be investigated and prosecuted by that system.
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VAUSE: 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
More 740,000 Rohingya have fled the violence, they're now in Bangladesh living in refugee camps. Most refugees watched Aung San Suu Kyi's testimony on television and they accused her of lying.
India's Parliament just passed a controversial new bill making it harder for Muslims to become citizens. On the flip side, the new legislation speeds up the citizenship process for religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. CNN's Ram Ramgopal explains.
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RAM RAMGOPAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For these Hindu refugees from, Pakistan a cause for celebration. India's new citizenship amendment bill fast-tracks the naturalization process for religious minorities who fled neighboring Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, before 2015, but not if they are Muslim.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is a question of giving citizenship to people who have fled other countries because of religious persecution. The minorities or any Muslim need not worry, I want to say this clearly, nobody needs to worry. If anyone threatens you or scares you, don't get scared.
RAMGOPAL (voice-over): The government says the bill will protect Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians, leaving predominantly Muslim countries but it argues that Muslims have not been persecuted.
Critics say that is not the case, pointing to the example of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan. Opposition politicians and activists say the bill is part of a pattern of anti-Muslim discrimination by Prime Minister Modi's Hindu nationalist government.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These are against the secular fabric of our country, of our constitution. They're directly saying that all refugees are welcome except Muslim refugees. And this is against the character of our nation.
RAMGOPAL (voice-over): Protests over the bill have been especially violent in India's Northeast; many indigenous groups there fear that giving citizenship to large numbers of immigrants who came on the border with Bangladesh forming independence in 1971, would change the unique ethnic makeup of the region and their way of life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are opposing this bill because this bill is unconstitutional, it is communal, it is against the interests of indigenous people of (INAUDIBLE).
RAMGOPAL (voice-over): Now that the bill is passed in both houses, it will be sent to the president to be signed into law -- Ram Ramgopal, CNN.
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VAUSE: The official death toll for the volcanic eruption in New Zealand now stands at eight, it is believed eight more victims are still on White Island but recovery operations remain on hold at least until, Friday out of safety concerns. More than 2 dozen people are still in hospital. Authorities have already ordered more than 1 million square centimeters of skin to treat their burns. CNN's Will Ripley reports on how the tourist treasure turned to tragedy.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Monday was a picture- perfect day to visit white island. Crystal blue skies, sunlight bouncing off the lunar-like landscape. Raw, rugged natural beauty lures thousands to this New Zealand treasure each year.
HOPKINS: Beautiful yellows and whites and crystals. But knowing just below the surface is so violent, so hot, so explosive.
RIPLEY: The trip was Geoff Hopkins 50th birthday gift from his daughter, Leilani.
HOPKINS: We weren't in any hurry to get off the island. I'm thinking where I'm going to sit on the boat so we can get some awesome shots of the island as we leave.
RIPLEY: He took this photo at 2:07 pm.
(on camera): Those dots are people who were in the crater.
HOPKINS: There people on the crater, like on the edge of the crater lake and then four minutes later --
RIPLEY (voice-over): At 2:11, blue skies turned dark.
HOPKINS: For a split second, it was a gasp of awe.
One or two seconds later is that menacing ash cloud started to roll over the cliff and engulf the island. Wow.
This is serious. This is bad. And you know, at that stage they knew you'd think there were people still on the island.
RIPLEY: Their tour boat turned around. Everything on the island covered in ash.
HOPKINS: And that smashed helicopter just completely gray. And we can see there's people in the water, as people swimming off the island.
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RIPLEY: They pulled 23 survivors onto the boat. It was hard to tell the students from the senior citizens.
HOPKINS: Everybody had horrific burns. Skin falling off, lots of screaming, you know, panic screaming. Get me out of here. I'm burning.
I'm burning.
RIPLEY: Hopkins is a trained first responder. He spent much of the 90- minute trip back to shore caring for a young couple from Virginia, Lauren and Matthew Urey on what was supposed to be their dream honeymoon.
HOPKINS: I remember I asked her name and she struggled to say it, but he said it for me. He said she's my wife. And she would ask, how is my husband? And he would ask, how is my wife?
RIPLEY: He fought to keep them awake. Fought to keep them alive.
HOPKINS: She said this is the worst day of my life. And I had to say, yes, it is, but you've got so much more in your life to live. When she says I don't think I'm going to make it, you rebuke that. You are going to make it. You are going to make it, you are strong. You're a fighter. You're going to get through this. You've got a future.
JANICE UREY, MATT UREY'S MOTHER: Ten minutes through this life or death for them.
RIPLEY: I spoke with Matt Urey's mom, Janice. She was about to board her flight for the 29-hour journey from Pennsylvania to New Zealand.
UREY: This is absolutely soul crushing. It's my worst nightmare, but on the other hand, I'm trying to focus on the positive. They were lucky enough they had already come down the volcano, so they were very close to the water.
RIPLEY: The couple managed to seek shelter behind a rock. They still suffered severe burns over much of their bodies.
HOPKINS: I'm still coming to terms with it.
RIPLEY: Hopkins tries not to think about what could have happened.
HOPKINS: If we hadn't have got off the island, there would have been double the victims and nobody to help. It's a day I'll never forget.
Never forget.
RIPLEY: He'll also never forget the people who died and the ones still fighting to stay alive -- Will Ripley, CNN, New Zealand.
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VAUSE: Around the world the number of jailed journalists remains at near record high, the end result of an ever increasing brutal response from autocratic governments unhappy with critical news coverage. More on that when CNN NEWSROOM returns in just a few minutes.
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VAUSE: For the fourth consecutive year at least 250 journalists are sitting in a jail somewhere around the world, simply for doing their job. The numbers from the Committee to Protect Journalists are near record highs.
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Driven mostly by a crackdown from authoritarian governments, unhappy with anything close to critical coverage. Like the deluge of recent reporting from China's Xinjiang region, exposing the full extent of the government efforts to wipe away any trace of the existence, culture and traditions of more than 10 million Uyghur Muslims who live there.
Here's part of an exclusive report filed by CNN's Matt Rivers. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cameras watched their every move, in some places positioned every 50 meters. While Han Chinese regularly breeze through the myriad police roadblocks, anyone we saw who appeared to be a minority got stopped. Racial profiling appears rampant.
But all that is likely still better than life for those that end up in places like this: detention camps designed for Muslim ethnic minorities, like this one outside the city of Kashgar, what China calls a job training site, to us, looked a lot more like a prison. High walls, barbed wire, guard towers, things multiple experts told CNN are telltale signs of detention centers.
Images like this are rare. Few people have seen camps like this up close, because China's government tries to prevent reporters like us from seeing them.
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VAUSE: A government crackdown and a surge in the number of arrests in Xinjiang as part of the reason why China has overtaken Turkey as the world's No. 1 jailer of journalists.
Courtney Radsch from the Committee to Protect Journalists is with us this hour from Washington.
So Courtney, thank you for coming in.
Let's look at the numbers, because they've fallen significantly in Turkey, which you know, on the surface, almost seems to be good news, but it's really not indicative of any real improvement in press freedom.
COURTNEY RADSCH, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS: That's correct. So we should not look at this as good news. Rather, what it is indicative of is the fact that President Erdogan has effectively eviscerated the press, shutting down hundreds of outlets, imprisoning journalists, forcing them into exile and doing everything that he can to stamp out any sort of journalism that would attempt to hold him into account.
VAUSE: So basically, there's no free press, as we've seen a couple of years ago, left in Turkey? It's pretty much gone?
RADSCH: I mean, essentially, yes. The -- Erdogan and his ruling party have taken over several independent outlets, shuttered them, forced them into exile, imprisoned journalists and sent a strong signal that independent, critical reporting will not be tolerated, and that there is, frankly, no interest in having any sort of journalism being done in Turkey that does not adhere to the official line.
VAUSE: OK. Let's moved on to China. Forty-eight reporters in jail there right now. The flash point seems to be, at the moment, Xinjiang, but there's a bigger picture here. It seems to be more about President Xi Jinping and his grip on power?
RADSCH: She Jinping has presided over a massive crackdown on the press, really trying to restrict information space, censor any sort of an independent or critical reporting on human rights abuses.
You mentioned Xinjiang, certainly, the crackdown there on a million ethnic Muslims that have been interred, has included the arrest and detainment of dozens of journalists but also Uyghur journalists. Any journalists who are reporting on human rights. Politics is off- limits.
But many of these journalists are being held without charges, so we don't even know precisely why they're being held.
VAUSE: Beijing's foreign ministry was completely dismissive of your report and basically accusing your organization of a lacking credibility. Listen to this.
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HUA CHUNYING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESWOMAN (through translator): First, the Committee to Protect Journalists that you mentioned is based in the U.S. I think that, after all that has happened, anything that is related to, operated or organized by the U.S. doesn't have any credibility at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So your response?
RADSCH: Well, first of all, we may be based in the U.S., but we have correspondents around the world. We accept no government funding, including from the United States or any other government. Our research is impeccable and stands up to scrutiny.
And the fact is, is that we have spent months investigating, trying to understand how many journalists are behind bars, because it's not like the Chinese government is forthcoming. There are accusations that we don't know why they're being held or that these journalists are being held for something other than retaliation for their reporting, is ludicrous and simply part of the broader efforts to restrict any sort of independent information coming out from the highly-censored and restricted country.
VAUSE: Yes. They seems to be a tale of two stories here, because there's a sort of crackdown in these authoritarian countries, but there's also the situation in the United States with a president who, you know, obviously does not like the media, you know. And he's happy to let everyone know about that. He's a small sample.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those people right up there with all the cameras. They are the worst.
Those very dishonest people back there. Absolute dishonest, absolute scum.
We have a very crooked media.
It's time to expose the crooked media deception.
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It's frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write.
I've never seen more dishonest media.
They're bad people, and I really think they don't like our country.
The media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade.
They are the enemy of the people.
I would never kill them, but I do hate them and some of them are such lying, disgusting people. It's true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: That was the short version. Here's a sample of headlines from around the world, and this is just this week. "Mexico's Journalists Fear Hostile Turn Under President." "Sri Lankan Journalists Fear New Government Silencing Dissent." "Alarm in Colombia Over Escalation in Unlawful Arrests of Journalists. "Buhari" -- as in President Buhari's -- "Attacks on the Press in Nigeria Continue Unabated."
There are a lot of others, but so I wonder how directly can you draw that line from Donald Trump to what's happening in other countries around the world, especially with the rise in the number of people being arrested what essentially they call false news or fake news?
RADSCH: Right. So we have been tracking the use of false news charges since we began keeping records decades ago, and the fact is, is that we've seen a significant rise in the past few years, especially since 2016.
Now this is obviously attributable to the fact that more countries have false news laws, but the fact that President Trump has created an environment in which fake news is being used to denigrate the press in order to attack them, to undermine journalism, undermine the importance of journalism to democracy, has had a real impact around the world. It sends a message to leaders that they're free to use the same rhetoric, and they won't be held accountable by the United States.
And we've seen this fake news rhetoric ricochet around the world, everywhere from repressive countries like China and Russia and Egypt, but also in democratic countries or quasi-democratic countries like the Philippines, Hungary, Poland.
So we've really seen this idea of fake news taken by those in power as a way to delegitimize independent reporting and try to divert attention and undermine the credibility of journalists so that they won't be held accountable.
VAUSE: Yes. It is interesting the -- you know, the connection between these two events. And obviously, it's no coincidence what we're seeing. Courtney, thank you so much. We appreciate you coming in. We appreciate the work you do.
RADSCH: Thank you. My pleasure.
VAUSE: And with that, we'll take a short break. You're watching CNN. Back in a moment.
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VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody.
"TIME" magazine has named its Person of the Year. No doubt you've heard about her name: 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg. Her relentless advocacy and her fearless calls for the world leaders to do something to stop climate change, it's grabbed the world's attention.
She's been on the receiving end of insults from leaders, including the U.S. president, Donald Trump. But that has not stopped her from speaking out.
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The teen activist is in Madrid right now for COP25, the U.N. climate meeting. And in her trademark, take-no-prisoners style, Thunberg is criticizing politicians and businesses for not doing enough to halt climate change.
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GRETA THUNBERG, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when, in fact, almost nothing is being done, apart from clever accounting, and creative P.R.
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VAUSE: It's the rainy season in East Africa, and this year's rainfall is unprecedented. Severe flooding has inundated farmland, causing landslides, and displaced thousands of people. U.N. experts say climate change is a key factor in all of this.
Farai Sevenzo has our report.
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FARAI SEVENZO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the rainy seasons have began across East Africa in recent months, countries across the region have been battered by unprecedented levels of rain. Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Somali, Uganda and Ethiopia, among others, have all been affected, and now the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says more than 2.8 million people across East Africa have been affected by the heavy rains and the flash flooding.
The climate science says warming waters in the Indian Ocean, which sits on the coast of East Africa, are contributing to the heavy rainfall.
In Kenya alone, more than 100 people are reported to have died, many in a landslide triggered by the rains in West Pokot County at the end of November. People's homes were buried.
Uganda's West Nile Province saw the Nile burst its banks with tragic consequences, such as yet more mudslides and drownings.
Somalia's Puntland braced for a major storm emanating from Madagascar this last weekend. The waters made people move to higher ground.
In some areas, the rains have come after months of drought, and their sudden appearance has wiped out crops and destroyed livelihoods. In South Sudan, where there's been conflict and widespread food insecurity, the rains had made existing shortages worse.
The sudden turn in East Africa's weather comes as partners gather in Madrid for COP25 to discuss the very issue of climate change. Here in East Africa, the falling rains have lent and urgency to the discussions underway in the Spanish capital.
Meryne Wara's organization, the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance, has people in Madrid.
MERYNE WARA, PAN AFRICA CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE: We built the capacities of communities, so that they can be resilient to the effects of climate change. But as an organization it's not enough. We do not have enough resources. So our governments are supposed to be in a position to work with us.
SEVENZO (on camera): I'm not in Madrid, but I understand that while Madrid is happening, and people are talking about climate change, this massive tragedy --
WARA: Yes.
SEVENZO: -- is hitting East Africa. I mean, if you were there, what would you tell them?
WARA: If you're a country that pollutes, pay up. Paying doesn't necessarily mean money. It means bring technologies that can be in a position to help our communities build their resilience. It means that provide some research for our countries that is supposed to help us know what is coming before comes.
SEVENZO (voice-over): The U.N. says more rains are expected East Africa throughout 2019 ends. And many here are wondering if these floods are an act of god or if they're manmade.
Farai Sevenzo, CNN, Nairobi.
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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. WORLD SPORT is up next.
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