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14 People Killed In Plane Crash In Kazakhstan; Israel's Netanyahu Retains Likud Party Leadership; Trump Campaign Web Site Aims To Help Win Arguments; 737 MAX's Return To The Skies Remains Uncertain; Activist Teaches Children in Bangladesh Camps; Bahamas Struggling Months after Hurricane Dorian. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired December 27, 2019 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from studio seven at CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. We start this out with breaking news. The death toll has risen. 14 people now confirmed dead after a commercial airliner crashed during takeoff from Kazakhstan's Almaty International Airport.

Five hours on since this crash, and it's still not clear why the plane lost altitude and crashed into a two-story building not far from the runway. The flight was operated by Bek Air and was headed for the capital Nur-Sultan. 93 passages and five crews were on board.

We head to Moscow now, with our Bureau Chief Nathan Hodge for more details. So Nathan, what have you learned in the last hour or so

NATHAN HODGE, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, John. We're just starting to see some of those horrific images that have come in from the scene of the crash. The Bek Air flight, the Fokker 100 crash shortly after takeoff after, according to initial reports, losing altitude after takeoff, and going through a concrete barrier crashing into a building.

And we've seen scenes now of rescue workers who've arrived on the scene. We've got -- we've been told by -- we've learned from Kazakh authorities that rescue teams have been arriving from around the vicinity of Almaty, the country's largest city, and have been taking victims of the crash to the hospitals -- to a number of hospitals say in the -- in the region.

Again, still, details are coming in. And we don't have a whole lot of clarity on what may or may not have caused this crash. But certainly, preliminary information has shown that the death toll has continued to slowly climb, and that a number of people are receiving urgent care at this hour. John? VAUSE: Nathan, we appreciate the update. Thank you. Nathan Hodge there in Moscow. David Soucie is a former FAA Safety Inspector. He's CNN's Safety Analyst right now, and he is with us from Hawaii. So, David, thanks for your time to be with us. What's your first thoughts here on the possible cause, especially when you get the fuselage, which is mostly intact, but the wings of the tale was broken away?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: I think the biggest portion of the damage that you're seeing right now is the fact that it did run into a brick wall at the end, and the aircraft is ruptured. And at that point, the wings and tail move forward because they have the most inertia. So that's the damage that you're seeing right now.

As far as the survivability, I'm really encouraged by the fact that it is -- we would consider a fairly survivable accident. The death toll has not risen to severe point as it would if it had broken into fire right away. So the first thing we'd be looking at there is just get the injured people off the aircraft, get them prepared for, but the most important thing right now though, too, is that if there is any fuel leaking, that they've got to get that area clear and get everybody out there as quickly as possible to make sure that fuel doesn't burst in flames.

VAUSE: Is that one of the reasons why takeoff is so dangerous in a way because those fuel tanks are full. This plane is about to head on a 600 mile flights to the capital, it would have been carrying a fairly big payload of fuel. If that have caught fire, that would have obviously been a very different outcome from what we're looking at now.

SOUCIE: Yes, I apologize to you. I'm in an area here and a recent announcement going on. I couldn't quite hear you. I was at the airport here.

VAUSE: I'm just talking about the takeoff -- the danger of takeoff because those fuel tanks are loaded with fuel at the beginning of a flight.

SOUCIE: Yes. Yes, they are. And especially in this flight because it was a long -- a long flight they were planning, so they were full of fuel. The danger actually in rupturing fuel tanks comes when they're not full of fuel, when they're -- when they're only about half full. That's the most dangerous time to crash an airplane.

When it's full of fuel, it adds the structural stability of the fuel tanks, and so they're less apt to rupture when they're pulled than when they're half full. So they did have that one point.

VAUSE: OK, also reports of many fog or mist at the airport, temperatures were well below freezing. So could those two factors are combined in a way which would have contributed to the crash?

SOUCIE: Well, I think the factors, it could have affected that. Yes, there's well below freezing, and I know that this airport has been under some construction and has been -- the airport, or excuse me, the airline itself has contributed $10 million towards improving this airport over the last several years. So I don't know what state.

I haven't been there in the last two years to see what condition is, but that money is used to improve the runway and to improve the de- icing and anti-icing capabilities at the airport. So whether that's a factor at this point is too early to tell. But I do know that those were things that were undergoing that were underway at the airport.

VAUSE: Bek Air was a classic airline. It's got a small fleet. I think eight or nine Fokker 100s which I guess mostly all they have in 20 years or so. And you know, this is Kazakhstan. I mean, we don't know if this was certain, but clearly, you'd be looking at maintenance issues at the age of the plane.

[01:05:09]

SOUCIE: Well, the airplane is pretty much a tank. I mean, that airplane has been around, as you said, for a long time. If properly maintained, that aircraft will continue to fly for many more years yet. I'm not -- it's too early again to state anything about maintenance or anything else on the aircraft. I don't want to jump ahead of the game here. But at this point, my suspect would be whether being the biggest factor at this point.

VAUSE: OK. David, thank you for that. We appreciate you being with us. Obviously, you're on vacation somewhere so -- or in Hawaii. Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

SOUCIE: OK, great. Thank you.

VAUSE: Israel's Likud are not giving up on Benjamin Netanyahu. The embattled Prime Minister has won a challenge to his leadership of the Likud with 72.5 percent of the vote by party members. His challenger, the former Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar got 27.5 percent of the vote.

Mr. Netanyahu faces criminal indictments for fraud, bribery, breach of trust in three separate cases, but he will lead his party into the general elections in March, Israelis vote for a third time in 12 months. On Thursday, Netanyahu tweeted his victory. "I thank the Likud members for the trust, the support, and the love. With God's help and with your help, I will lead the Likud to a great victory. In the coming election, I will continue leading the State of Israel to unprecedented achievements," is what he wrote.

He had a big win but was it big enough? For more now on Netanyahu's leadership win, Gil Hoffman, Chief Political Correspondent and Analyst for the Jerusalem Post joins us this hour from Jerusalem. So Gil, 72 percent for Netanyahu, 28 percent for Sa'ar, big enough to put down any further leadership challenges, or the fact it happened in the first place, and almost a third of the Likud wanted a new leader, is that a big great beacon to others that it's on, more challenges on the way?

GIL HOFFMAN, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANALYST, JERUSALEM POST: This is a huge boost for Benjamin Netanyahu. He really proved that the party is him and he is the party. And if he -- if we saw that this would weaken him on the way to our race for the Knesset that's happening on the second of March, we were very wrong.

Netanyahu played smart politically, did three, four rallies a day in cities across the country, met over the last two weeks alone with some 10,000 supporters all over. And that gave him a head start for the election that's coming up while his opponent Benny Gantz has been quiet.

VAUSE: And this claim that others apart from Netanyahu making that this is a leadership win and it sets up for a big Likud win at the general election. But really, the reality doesn't seem to have changed. You know, the world is as it was the day before, right? This seems almost like Netanyahu got everything to lose, but nothing to gain.

HOFFMAN: Well, he showed that he can participate in a democracy and not be a dictator, which had been one of the accusations against him. There hadn't been a real race for the Likud leadership in 14 years. And he would have been hurt if Gideon Sa'ar, his opponent, would have attacked him in a mean kind of way, but he didn't.

Sa'ar was very careful not to go below the belt, did not ever raise the criminal investigations against Netanyahu, but did say that it's too hard for him to form a government than that he had two chances and failed, and that was just reflecting reality.

So he's coming out of this as a knight who's been through one fight, and is now ready for some more jousting without even a dent on his armor.

VAUSE: And to that point, if you look at the results from the first election, one in April, the other one a couple of months ago, and the vote for Likud decline from one relation to the other, is this leadership win by Netanyahu, is that going to change that vote, that turnout, he will he get a better result? I mean, there's things that I don't understand what's actually changed here to give him a, you know, higher return in March.

HOFFMAN: Well, the very fact that he was all over the country -- the last two elections, he ran entirely on social media. He learned from Bolsonaro that that's a good way to do it. Now, the right-wing leaders around the world, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu learned from each other campaign tactics, some of the leaders in Europe as well. And this time Netanyahu decided to take it a different way.

Whenever you dominate the headlines in a positive way, that's good for a candidate. And this election now is once again going to be to Bibi or not to Bibi even more so than before. All the other parties now have some catch up to do as the election comes closer.

VAUSE: So essentially we're saying is that he's had a much better season campaigner, he's got a bit of a head start of the general election because he's already hit the road against this leadership challenge. The reality is though that the Likud Party now heads into this general election with a leader twice indicted, who's twice failed to form a working government, and is pushing what is a very unpopular immunity law so that he can avoid possible jail time.

[01:10:07]

HOFFMAN: Three times indicted, and that will definitely be what -- that's how his opponents are going to be highlighting between now and March 2nd. But there's one more stronger card that they're going to play, which is that there are plenty of Likud voters who agree with Netanyahu on virtually all of his policies, who think that the criminal investigations against him are a witch hunt, who will not vote for him because they're afraid that he would step down, that these cases will force Netanyahu to leave, and then we'd be stuck with having a fourth election, which is the last thing anybody in this country wants. We're sick and tired of politics over here.

VAUSE: Yes. Which says something because the Israelis love politics. I mean, it's an amazing thing that they finally exhausted by everything. I just wonder about this leadership challenge. And the fact that it was so genteel, and it was so collegial almost in a way, and Sa'ar was sort of always respectful of Netanyahu. At one point saying, you'd be a great president and he'd back him for the presidency. It always seemed like the fix was in.

HOFFMAN: Look, this was never a serious race. What I wrote in the newspaper the other day was that Sa'ar was really running for Crown Prince of King Bibi. That if he would have achieved the 30 percent, then it would be clear that he would be the heir apparent. He did not. He got 28 percent. That proved that Netanyahu head above everybody else.

That's true within the Likud primary. That's also true within the Knesset as a whole. No one could compete with his political experience, unless Jesus is going to come back between now and be our Savior between now and the second of March. And I don't think that's going to happen.

VAUSE: It's Israel. Anything can happen. Gil, thank you so much.

HOFFMAN: I don't know about that.

VAUSE: I appreciate it. Mr. Netanyahu's par of victory in the Likud Party and possibly the March election has followed an increasingly familiar pattern. CNN's Oren Liebermann reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is becoming a familiar image among friends, a black and white picture of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointing at the camera. The caption says, they're not only after me, they're after us. It's copied from President Donald Trump who used a similar image with a similar message days earlier.

The well documented political bromance has been a focus of Netanyahu's messaging featuring heavily in election campaigns. On Christmas Eve --

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER, ISRAEL: Merry Christmas to all our Christian friends.

LIEBERMANN: Netanyahu promising another political gift from the Trump administration.

NETANYAHU (through translator): We're going to bring American recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and pay attention in all of the settlements, those in the blocks and those that are not.

LIEBERMANN: Netanyahu and Trump share much more than style. As Trump faces impeachment, Netanyahu faces criminal indictment, charges of bribery, and fraud, and breach of trust in three corruption investigations. Netanyahu has insisted he's innocent, calling the charges an attempted coup and a media-driven witch hunt.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They call it the rigged witch hunt.

LIEBERMANN: Language we've heard from Trump as well. In messages like this, Netanyahu has painted himself as the victim while leaning once again on his relationship with Trump to boost his standing. But Trump borrowed this one.

TRUMP: I want to especially thank a great man and a great leader, the leader of India, Prime Minister Modi, my friend.

LIEBERMANN: It was with another populist leader Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that we first saw the message.

NARENDRA MODI, PRIME MINISTER, INDIA: Our great American President, Mr. Donald Trump.

LIEBERMANN: Modi's supporters created and spread a meme, a picture of the Hindu leader with the words, "In reality, they're not after me, they're after you. I'm just in the way." With his India first style of politics, Modi has celebrated Trump's America first brand.

MODI: It believes in American future and a strong resolve to make America great again.

LIEBERMANN: Modi has also shown his love for Netanyahu, in 2017 becoming the first sitting Indian Prime Minister to visit Jerusalem. While Modi isn't facing any personal corruption scandals, his government has been facing massive protests after the passage of a controversial immigration law that critics say discriminates against Muslims.

That's three nationalist leaders united by love of brash tactics and strong man strategies. For Modi and Trump, this style of campaigning worked. It's less clear with Netanyahu who faces a third straight election within 12 months having already failed to form a government twice. Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[01:15:00] VAUSE: After the break, the Boeing 737 Max crisis continues to spiral downwards from bad to worst. It's now not unreasonable to ask what was once almost unthinkable. Will the beleaguered plane ever fly again or will it remain grounded forever?

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DEREK VAN DAM, CNN INTERNATIONAL WEATHER ANCHOR: The mild stretch of weather continues for the eastern two-thirds of the United States. You can see not much weather taking place across this region aside from a weak cold front that's moving across northern New England.

We do, however, look for a storm system that's tracking across the four corners that will eventually spread the potential for rain over the eastern parts of the country. And then even some snowfall on the backside of the system on the colder part of low pressure.

So, the National Weather Services hoisted a few winter storm watches and warnings, stretching from Utah into Arizona, and southern Colorado right through the plains and into northern portions of Minnesota.

You can see the storm evolution over the next 36 hours or so, and that could cause some delays, especially on the roadways and into the airports across the middle portions of America.

But for the most part, the major metropolitans of the East Coast will not be impacted. This will be more of a rain event because they will be on the warmer side of the system. You can see the rain and snow accumulation going forward for the next several days.

Really dividing the country with snow over the West and rain over the East. 17 for Atlanta for your Friday. Seven degrees for Chicago above freezing, for New York as well. Two degrees for Denver, 13 hear San Francisco with partly cloudy skies.

Here is a look at your temperature trends through the course of the week. You can see, we have mild conditions continuing through the weekend, but another shot of colder air starts to settle in from the Great Lakes to New York.

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VAUSE: For almost an entire day on Twitter, the U.S. president was all, peace on earth, goodwill to all, unity, and love stuff. But that was Christmas and now it's over.

So, it's back to that crazy Nancy Pelosi, Democrat is bad, and impeachment hoax, you know, the usual. Here is CNN's Pamela Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Today, President Trump shedding the short-lived Christmas spirit by attacking Democrats and calling his impeachment unfair. Tweeting, "The radical left, do nothing Democrats said they wanted to rush everything through to the Senate because President Trump is a threat to National Security. They are vicious, will say anything, but now they don't want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!"

The president specifically targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Labeling her San Francisco district, "filthy dirty" and smearing her as crazy. Trump tweeting, "Now, Pelosi is demanding everything the Republicans weren't allowed to have in the house. Dems want to run majority-Republican Senate. Hypocrites!"

[01:20:06]

TRUMP: We wish everyone a joyous and Merry Christmas.

BROWN: The Twitter tirade in stark contrast to the unifying message Trump delivered on Christmas. Saying in a statement, "While the challenges that face our country are great, the bonds that unite us as Americans are much stronger. Together, we must strive to foster a culture of deeper understanding and respect, traits that exemplify the teachings of Christ."

But even on Christmas Eve, Trump launched a baseless attack against Speaker Pelosi when he did a video conference with U.S. troops.

TRUMP: She hates the Republican Party. She hates all the people that voted for me, and the Republican Party. And she is desperate to do.

BROWN: With impeachment on the president's mind, later that night, Trump was spotted talking with Attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was in discussions to join Trump's defense for the Senate impeachment trial.

Dershowitz has stated publicly, he has offered Trump legal advice.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: The advice I've given the president in public, on television, and in my op-eds, is to go for a very short constitutional defense, focusing on the inadequacies of the two charges.

BROWN: Also on Christmas Eve, the Trump campaign launching this new web site, designed to help Trump supporters win arguments with their liberal relatives, giving talking points on a number of topical issues.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: A source close to the president's legal team, says there are still serious discussions about Alan Dershowitz, as well as some of the president's GOP allies playing a role in the president's defense during the Senate trial.

But given how fluid everything is, the source says the only thing for certain right now is that the White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will be taking the lead as the defense in the Senate trial, assisted by several of his deputies and that the president's personal counsel will be playing a role as well.

Pamela Brown, CNN, the White House.

VAUSE: When regulators grounded the 737 MAX worldwide back in March, Boeing and aviation experts believe the worst-case scenario would see the airline out of service maybe for a few months, and costs the aerospace giant about $5 billion.

Now, nine months on, the MAX is going nowhere. One of they thought the biggest crisis in the history of Boeing has cost the company more than $9 billion. Revenue and profits were way down in the third quarter, the CEO has been fired, and as this drags on, there are more and more revelations that Boeing appears to have known more, a lot more about the problems with the 737 than it was willing to admit.

There seems no reason to believe at this point the crisis has hit bottom. It also seems reasonable to ask, will the 737 MAX ever fly again?

Peter Goelz is a CNN aviation analyst and a former NTSB managing director, and he's with us now from Washington. Peter, as well, it's nice to see you.

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good to see you, John.

VAUSE: OK, just looking how this crisis has gone from bad to worse for Boeing. It seemed here the original worst-case scenario was the 737 will back in the air January in the New Year. That's the best case and that doesn't seem likely. Is the new revised worst-case scenario an indefinite grounding?

GOELZ: It is going to be grounded for the immediate future. I mean, people were very optimistic, and after the two accidents. And the idea that this was going to get back in the air, sometime in 1919, was unrealistic.

I don't think it's going to get back in for until the first six months of 2020. They have a lot of work to do, not only from the FAA and Boeing perspective but the FAA's relationship with the other regulatory authorities across the globe.

VAUSE: And part of that sort of over-optimism that you talked about was -- you know, there was this time like, if you like between the two fatal crashes with the 737s and Boeing's bottom line which has been impacted.

Third-quarter profits were down more than 50 percent. The Washington Post reported back in October, "Boeing's latest dismal financial results underscore how swiftly the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX has choked off the company's number one line of business, and how urgently Boeing needs the jet back in the air."

And obviously, that's not going to happen for a while. So, do the issues he go beyond the revenue from sales of the 737 MAX? Could there oddly be other -- you know, big impacts on other areas of business for Boeing?

GOELZ: Well, you know, they've stopped the production line, but they haven't laid off any of the workers yet. So, they've kind of half stopped the bleeding. If this thing runs on for another 90 or 120 days, they're going to have to stop laying off people. You know, the Boeing has about 150,000 employees worldwide. Commercial aviation is about 40 percent of those, and the 737 MAX is the biggest player in their stable. So, you know, they had 4,500 planes on order.

[01:25:00]

GOELZ: If they don't get that plane back in the air sometime in the first quarter -- if they don't have a promise to get it back in the air in the first quarter, they're going to take a very serious hit.

VAUSE: They'll take a serious hit, but ultimately this Boeing, too big to fail.

GOELZ: They are too big to fail. They will -- you know, there are 4,500 planes on order, even if they lose some of those, there is a worldwide demand for a short and intermediate-range, single-aisle planes that Airbus cannot meet. The MAX will find a way to get in there.

But, of course, the issue is whether they're going to rename it and rebrand it. And I think they probably will. It's -- there's a lot of hesitation on the consumer's part to get up in the plane. I think they're going to have to have a very aggressive and honest sales pitch to put this plane back into the green.

VAUSE: It will lead a situation, this grounding of the MAX it set the nine-month point, the longest ever -- I think in the U.S. by a long shot. The other record holder was the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Out of service in 2013 for about three months and there were a couple of other ones there as well.

You mentioned this, as the 300 MAX airliners which were in service around the world, they'd be benched. Add to that, you know, the 400 -- maybe 450, which had been built since the grounding was announced, announced -- you know, production has been suspended.

Back in July, Forbes published the satellite photos of various airfields where the planes have been parked. And part of their reporting, here it is. "There were 60 planes in a section of Boeing field as of Sunday," this is that back in July. "Near the 737 factory in Renton, Washington, with some taking over employee parking spots."

You know, a lot more 737s are now parked there. Has there ever been a scenario like this in your time when you've seen 700 planes, commercial airliners just taken out of service and parked?

GOELZ: We've never seen anything like this. You know, and it really is a reflection of the arrogance that Boeing approached these two tragedies during the immediate weeks following them.

And, you know, they have a heavy hand in Washington and they -- people knew that. And it certainly has not worked out. This is extraordinary that there are that many planes sitting on the tarmac. And it's, you know, to get each one of those planes back in the air, you're going to have to do a check, you're going to have to do a test flight, the FAA is going to have to look at them.

That's not going to be an easy process. As I say, I don't think we're going to see planes back in the air for probably six months.

VAUSE: Yes, it's an interesting point you make. A good one to finish on, Peter. Thank you very much, good to see you. Peter Goelz for us in Washington. Thank you.

GOELZ: Thank you.

VAUSE: Up next on CNN newsroom. A lost generation. School-age Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, banned from public schools, denied an education and the future. But not now, at least, for a fortunate few. Details coming up.

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[01:31:22]

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour.

Fourteen people now confirmed dead after a Bek Air flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan. The Fokker 100 lost altitude and hit a two-story building. 93 passengers and five crew were on board flying to the capital of Nur- Sultan.

Benjamin Netanyahu's scored a resounding win in his bid to stay on as the head of Israel's conservative Likud Party. The Prime Minister beat challenger Gideon Saar 32 percent to 27 percent in a vote by party members. Despite facing criminal indictments, Mr. Netanyahu now also faces a general election in March.

More than two years ago, Bangladesh did what no other country in the world was willing to do -- give safe haven to hundreds of thousands of Muslims fleeing state-sponsored genocide in neighboring Myanmar. But authorities in Bangladesh has said the Rohingya will not be allowed to stay forever. It is becoming increasingly obvious they are wearing out there welcome.

For most of the last year, the U.N. has been negotiating the terms and conditions for repatriation of the Rohingya. But for now the vast majority are refusing to return to Myanmar, refusing to give up the relative safety of the refugee camp.

The camps in Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh among the biggest in the world. They're overcrowded and miserable. And to emphasize the point, this is a short term solution, the government of Bangladesh prohibits Rohingya children from attending local schools while inside the camps U.N. agencies and aid groups are prevented from providing a government accredited program.

In other words about 400,000 school-aged children are being denied a formal education. The same kids who just over two years ago survived ethnic cleansing and lost almost everything they had.

According to a report from Human Rights Watch, the barrier to schooling for Rohingya refugee children is not a lack of resources but the government's policy of deliberate depravation of education in pursuit of its efforts to prevent the refugees from integrating.

Even so some children turn up every day in makeshift classrooms where they are taught the basics. Officially they're called learning centers, not schools, and they are teaching kids like these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, my name is (INAUDIBLE). Goodbye.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Hi. My name is (INAUDIBLE). Goodbye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello. Hi. My name is (INAUDIBLE). Goodbye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Just some of the kids who are now attending a learning center which was founded by Rajiv Uttamchandani who joins us here now in studio. So welcome. It is nice to see you.

RAJIV UTTAMCHANDANI, ACTIVIST: Thank you very much -- John. Likewise.

VAUSE: We have been talking about this for almost two years now. That's when you first started.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Nearly two years ago, right.

VAUSE: So some of those kids who you've started teaching, they've graduated, right?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes they have.

VAUSE: So they've got an education, at least they have education. There was this one girl you were telling me about --

UTTAMCHANDANI: Right.

VAUSE: -- she now speaks fluent English.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes, she does.

VAUSE: Which is amazing.

UTTAMCHANDANI: She does.

VAUSE: Which is great.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes.

VAUSE: But what would she do with that? What will these kids who are graduating -- what are their opportunities? It's so much bitter- sweet. Like they graduate, they have an education -- where do they go from there?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Well, there the hope is that they actually get jobs in other learning centers or NGOs around.

VAUSE: Within the camps?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Within the camps itself, so they can be translators. They can help mentor other children in other schools. That is what we hope for these kids, for the most part. Because they are not allowed to go outside the camps.

VAUSE: So their world is confined to these camps in Cox's Bazar?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Entirely so.

VAUSE: The Bangladesh government has made it clear that really, you know, time is coming up where they want them to leave, which is understandable. It is a third world country, it's struggling to, you know, with obviously its population as well.

But what it means though is they've started taking these -- the extreme steps of preventing you from teaching an accredited program.

[01:34:53]

VAUSE: And then on the other side of the equation you have Myanmar which has not given any indication if it will recognize the program which, you know, NGOs like yours or you know, other charities or the U.N. are teaching these kids.

So it is a one-two punch. So what happens to these kids now with their education -- where do they go? What they do with it?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Well, the problem is again, as you said, rightfully so, the programs that we are teaching, as sophisticated as they can be, they're not accredited. So one day they go back to Myanmar, then that curriculum will not be recognized.

VAUSE: So they can't go to university, for example?

UTTAMCHANDANI: They can't go to university, even after graduating from our program. So, we don't have a long term solution for that because that is a political problem. That is within the confines of the government.

But what we want to try to do at least is that if they stay in these camps for five years, 10 years, or 15 years, at least they get the basic education that we want to give them. At least they can speak and write English. At least they have some sort of job that they can do.

VAUSE: One of the issues right now is just simply a lack of space.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes.

VAUSE: These camps are so full. You set up a service with capacity for 400?

UTTAMCHANDANI: About, yes, about 200 each. So we have two rotating shifts of students.

VAUSE: This is all amazing -- these are the kids who couldn't get in and they're --

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes, these are -- exactly right. These are the kids that while -- this is while I was there myself. I was teaching our students, it was about 120 in that classroom at the same time. These kids, there was no room to fit any other kids, they were outside just looking in.

VAUSE: How do you decide which kid gets in and which kid doesn't?

UTTAMCHANDANI: Well, it's just a vicinity thing. We open up the enrollment and whoever signs up, the first one to reach 20 --

(CROSSTALKING)

VAUSE: First come, first serve.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes. Exactly right.

VAUSE: It's certainly heartbreaking at times.

UTTAMCHANDANI: It is very heartbreaking.

VAUSE: The Bangladesh government has this timeframe of like two years for repatriation, which kind of seems unrealistic.

UTTAMCHANDANI: It is. They are going to be there for a long time. It is clear that Myanmar does not want these refugee children. So they are going to be at the camps for a long time, it behooves the government and any other entities to actually allow all of these NGOs to provide them with accredited education programs.

VAUSE: The amazing thing about the story, we have done it a couple of times, is the power of a CNN story.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes.

VAUSE: Because what we did in the last story, it actually was picked up by the royal family in Eswatini -- which was formerly Swaziland.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Exactly right.

VAUSE: And they contacted you about doing some work for them.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes, they did.

VAUSE: So this is now kind of the interesting thing. They reached out to you because they had seen the story of the Rohingya and they had a project, a proposal for you. It's a commercial proposal, but if it works it could end up helping the kids in Cox's Bazar. So explain what the deal is. UTTAMCHANDANI: Yes. Basically -- well, the Kingdom of Eswatini is a

developing nation. They have a vision to become first world in the near future. So when they saw what I was doing in the Rohingya camps and the education system that I was trying to provide for these children, there was an opportunity there. Not only to improve perhaps basic education in Eswatini for children. But to engage in commercial opportunities to expand their agricultural commerce.

VAUSE: That is where you get the quinoa crop (ph), right.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Exactly right. Exactly, so as you may be aware -- quinoa is one of the highest demand grain for the world.

VAUSE: There's a shortage.

UTTAMCHANDANI: There's a shortage --

VAUSE: Because people in California love it.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Exactly. Right. All the rich persons. They love these things. So it is a high demand crop. The price is very high as well.

And in Eswatini, it's one of the world's most bio diverse regions -- rich soil, rich everything. He said why don't we -- the quinoa crop into the kingdom. Export it out, and then use the proceeds not only to benefit the kingdom of Eswatini but they had to find our charity activities. For example, in the Rohingya camps.

VAUSE: Good luck.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Thank you very much -- John.

VAUSE: Good to see you.

UTTAMCHANDANI: Likewise.

VAUSE: Cheers.

You're watching CNN. The news continues right after this.

[01:38:21]

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VAUSE: Typhoon Phanfone has left a deadly mark on the Philippines. At least 28 people have died. Twelve others are still missing.

The storm made landfall on Tuesday and has destroyed homes and businesses, dozens of cities are still without power. Phanfone is now over the south China Sea where it's expected to weaken to a tropical depression before making landfall in northern Vietnam on Sunday.

It's been almost four months since Hurricane Dorian tore through the Bahamas, leaving parts of the island chain devastated.

CNN's Michael Holmes reports on the long road to recovery.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In an area still ravaged by disaster, volunteers clear the homes of those forced to leave everything behind.

DANA TARNO-GERKEN, ALL HANDS AND HEARTS ORGANIZATION: We have found a wedding dress and we saw pictures and trophies. We had photo albums, a box of children's toys. And to have it just be completely ruined and completely taken out was a difficult day. And that is the average house here. That is the average house here.

HOLMES: Months after the most powerful hurricane to ever strike the Bahamas, parts of this island nation remain in ruins. Recovery often depends on the kindness of strangers.

TARNO-GERKEN: I was actually one of the first volunteer on the ground. It was mixed emotions, very hard to process the amount of devastation that was here so -- sorry. It's just, these people need a lot. And I have the time to give it so.

HOLMES: Dana Tarno-Gerken felt compelled to help after watching Hurricane Dorian throttle the Bahamas on television in September.

TARNO-GERKEN: The waterline hit I guess about here.

HOLMES: She and the group of volunteers are now working to rebuild some of the worst-hit areas where the situation is still dire.

TARNO-GERKEN: We have no electricity, for the most part. In this area, the people are trying to make sure that they have a place just to stay that has, you know, no holes in the roof. We have had people come up to us and ask us just for water.

HOLMES: On Great Abaco and Grand Bahama islands where the storm first made landfall thousands lost their homes, entire communities swept away. Earlier this month the Prime Minister said, 70 people have lost their lives and more were still missing.

Millions of dollars of aid had poured in. But the storm left billions of dollars in damages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a lot of tremendous amount of work to be done here. That's right. We are going to be here for two years.

HOLMES: In long term destruction, volunteers must prioritize how to rebuild.

DAVID EISENBAUM, ALL HANDS AND HEARTS ORGANIZATION: Disasters take a very long time to recover from -- years, not months. It is a bit of a misconception. And in places like this the school, what we need is the manpower, the volunteers to come and do the work. To work alongside the Bahamians and help recover these communities.

HOLMES: Amid devastating loss, there're still signs of hope. TARNO-GERKEN: These people are dealing with a lot of pain. They have a very large need. But they still laugh, they still smiled, they still thank us.

HOLMES: Communities and volunteers banding together on the long road to recovery.

Michael Holmes, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.

"WORLD SPORT" starts after the break.

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