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China under Fire over Coronavirus; American Evacuees Test Positive for Virus after Leaving Cruise Ship; China's Mass Detention of Uyghur Muslims; Nevada Volunteers Concerned About Counting Process; FC Porto Striker Leaves Pitch after Racist Abuse; Amazon CEO Pledges $10 Billion to Fight Climate Change; Flooding Strikes Parts of the U.K. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired February 18, 2020 - 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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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes.
Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, dangerous times, drastic measures: China destroying cash and thinking about postponing a key Communist Party conference, all in an effort to help contain the coronavirus.
Also, the secret documents Beijing does not want the world to see. Leaked records detail a disturbing level of surveillance of Uyghur Muslims.
And a $10 billion bid to save the planet: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos plans to give that massive amount of money to fight climate change. Some say that is not enough.
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HOLMES: A warm welcome.
Nearly half of China's population, that's about 780 million people, currently are under travel restrictions, as officials struggle to contain the coronavirus. Authorities say another 98 people died across the country on Monday, bringing the global death toll to more 1,800, at least 73,000 confirmed cases.
China also says some 12,000 patients have recovered and have been discharged from hospitals, the good news. In an unusual twist the country's central bank now says it will disinfect and destroy cash that has been potentially infected in another effort to contain the outbreak.
Officials are also considering postponing a major political gathering, the People's National Congress to concentrate their efforts on fighting the outbreak. CNN's Steven Jiang has been covering this outbreak from Beijing for us, more now on the containment effort.
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STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER, BEIJING BUREAU: The 780 million figure is staggering, at the epicenter in Hubei province and a growing number of cities, people are confined to their homes 24-7, not permitted to be out and about at all.
Food and other daily necessity items will be delivered to their residential compounds by local officials. But probably more struggling is what is happening outside of the epicenter, when the authorities insist things have been improving and saying that the case numbers have been declining 14 days in a row outside of Hubei.
But you still these strict quarantine and screening measures being put in place in cities like Beijing, which has more than 20 million residents but has reported less than 400 cases so far.
Still authorities have implemented a mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone who comes from out of town. And also residential compounds from across the city now limit access to residence only. All these measures make it very difficult and if not outright impossible for people to go back to their jobs or to work, even though that is what the authorities have been encouraging people to do.
But the impact is not just on the economic front. The government will announce the annual National People's Congress, the yearly gathering of nearly 3,000 national legislators here in Beijing due to open on March 5th.
But now in a very unusual and almost unprecedented move, the government says it's going to delay the meeting this year. This is seemingly contradicting to their optimism in terms of things being under control outside of Hubei.
And another sign of this was, over the weekend, we saw the publication of a speech given by President Xi Jinping recently. And what caught a lot of people's attention was Mr. Xi chairing a top leadership meeting on January 7th about this virus outbreak.
So really raising a lot of eyebrows about when exactly the top leadership knew about this virus and what they did and did not do initially.
Some analysts think this new timeline would shift the blame away from local authorities to the central leadership in terms of their initial handling of this crisis. But many others say this is about Mr. Xi's increasing confidence and why he's now ready to claim credit and highlight his own leadership role in this battle.
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JIANG: So still a lot of mixed signals on many fronts -- Steven Jiang, CNN, Beijing.
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HOLMES: Some 160 million Chinese citizens meanwhile are expected to return to work by Tuesday. But the bustling streets of Shanghai have turned into a ghost town as they are still afraid to go outside because of the coronavirus. CNN's David Culver has that.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside Beijing south railway station, passengers sporting a range of plastic protective attire. This man dressed in a raincoat, hair net and goggles.
Another woman donning a plastic veil of sorts, purple latex gloves as she thumbs through her phone determined to keep from contracting the novel coronavirus. Everyone abiding by the requirement to wear a mask.
Security patrols the terminal in hazmat suits, as one worker sprays a liquid bleach like substance around the feet of travelers. This is what train travel has become in China.
Arriving in Shanghai, passengers file through a round of temperature checks. Then using smartphones you are required to register your health and travel history. Only then can you enter the city.
The normally vibrant financial hub subdued. We stroll down the popular Nanjing road. Most stores closed. The shops that were open, eager for business. To walk in you go through what's become a standard temperature reading. Inside the look on some of the employees faces suggested they are desperate for a return to normalcy.
(on camera): We are in the heart of Shanghai's financial district and just look how slowly things are moving. There's hardly any traffic in what is normally a very busy circle. And as far as the lunch time rush, well we've seen maybe a few folks are out and about. But this certainly does not feel like a city coming back to life.
Is that unusual?
YENA LEI, WORKER IN FINANCE: No.
CULVER (voice-over): Yena Lei tells us this elevated pedestrian plaza is normally packed, mostly with tourists trying to snap a skyline photo. As someone who works in finance, Yena says this strange silence will come at a cost.
(on camera): Do you think it's going to have a long impact though economically?
LEI: I think that overall the impact will be from April, May.
CULVER: Do you feel nervous?
LEI: A little but not too much. Just a reminder -- even my family is a take care. Because out of your control, out of your own country.
CULVER: China's state council had estimated that some 160 million people would be traveling in what was a post extended Lunar New Year holiday. However, as we made our way here from Beijing to Shanghai, it seemed
as though those numbers may not come to fruition. At least walking around here, you also get the feel that the city is not yet ready to restart -- David Culver, CNN, Shanghai.
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HOLMES: And 14 Americans evacuated from the cruise ship in Japan, who tested positive for the coronavirus, are now being treated in the United States. More than 300 Americans from the Diamond Princess were flown to military bases in California and Texas on Monday, where they will spend another 14 days in quarantine.
And as Brian Todd finds out, some of them are rather upset about that.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An excruciating journey for Americans being evacuated by the U.S. government from the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship that has become a floating incubator for coronavirus; 338 Americans taken off the ship in Yokohama, Japan, and flown to two Air Force bases in the U.S., more than a dozen of them have tested positive for coronavirus.
Passengers irritated that they had to wait hours for buses, hours to board the planes and, at certain points, did not even have access to bathrooms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The best I can do is go find out where a bathroom is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go find out.
TODD (voice-over): One American passenger, Karey Maniscalco, was at the end of her rope after going through almost two weeks of quarantine on the ship, only to be told she'll have to do it all over again on a military base.
KAREY MANISCALCO, EVACUATED PASSENGER: They have sent over a dozen emails ensuring us that there would not be an additional quarantine. And they just told us that we would be quarantined for 14 more days.
TODD (voice-over): Another American on board the Diamond Princess, Matthew Smith, has not left his cabin for two weeks and Smith refused to be evacuated.
MATTHEW SMITH, QUARANTINED PASSENGER: The minute they were going to break that quarantine, put us all on coaches and then planes for 10 hours and we thought we had a far better chance of catching the virus on that transference than we had ever had on the ship.
TODD (voice-over): The Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess who tested positive were put in specialized containment areas on the planes, kept isolated from other passengers.
Was it safe for the rest of the passengers to sit so close together on the long plane ride to the U.S.?
REBECCA KATZ, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: I don't know. We really don't know. there was no evidence for separating them from each other.
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KATZ: That being said, you will see the pictures. Everyone had a mask on. That mask was mostly to prevent, so if I coughed, the particles would get caught in the mask.
TODD (voice-over): There are now more than 71,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide. Nearly 1,800 people have died.
A key question now, given what happened on the Diamond Princess, is it safe to go on any cruise right now?
DR. CELINE GOUNDER, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: I'm not a big fan of cruises. I think for a whole host of reasons, we've seen a number of norovirus outbreaks on cruises over the years.
Norovirus causes gastrointestinal illness and nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This is largely because the conditions for the staff working on cruise ships is really poor. They're in crowded conditions and they have to work extremely long hours.
TODD: Experts on public health have told us that while hindsight is 20-20, what officials should have done with the passengers on board the Diamond Princess was to have gotten everyone off the ship as soon as they learned of one case of coronavirus.
They should have gotten them to all separate quarantines on land and monitored and tested them. That would've reduced transmissions on board the ship. Instead, what they did was, according to one expert, they stoked the fire -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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HOLMES: Syria's president says his forces' recent rapid gains are a prelude to the defeat of rebels. Russian airstrikes and pro-Iranian militias have helped Syrian forces seize control of much of the area around Aleppo.
You can see there on the map. And they have pushed further into the rebel held Idlib province. Bashar al-Assad warns the war is not over yet.
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BASHAR AL-ASSAD, PRESIDENT OF SYRIA (through translator): We are fully aware that this does not mean the end of war, nor the collapse of schemes nor the demise of terrorism. Nor does it mean that the enemies have surrendered. But it certainly means rubbing their noses in the dirt as a prelude for a complete defeat sooner or later.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: The United Nations says more than 875,000 Syrian have fled the targeted villages since December, an extraordinary number. It's the nine-year-old war's single largest displacement.
We will take a short break. But when we come back, vocational training or internment camps? Coming up, what leaked documents reveal about how China targets its Uyghur minority.
And the world's richest man has just put his money where his mouth is in the fight against climate change. We will explain how Amazon chief Jeff Bezos' $10 billion dollar donation might deliver results. There's criticism, though. More on that later.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
Over the past four years, China says it has been trying to root out what it calls Islamist extremism and terrorism in the western region of Xinjiang through what it calls a massive vocational training program.
But critics and survivors of that program say it is actually a mass internment policy, targeting members of the country's Muslim minority.
CNN's Ivan Watson obtained rare leaked documents from inside Xinjiang. They reveal an extraordinary level of surveillance and show China rounding up and containing its citizens for the most arbitrary reasons.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Growing a long beard, making an international phone call, having a passport. These are all reasons that can land you in what U.S. officials are calling concentration camps in China.
Chilling revelations detailed in what appears to be a Chinese government surveillance report on its citizens, leaked from Xinjiang. That is a region in western China, where a mass internment policy has forced up to 2 million Muslims, mostly from the country's ethnic Uyghur minority, into detention.
WATSON: The documents are spreadsheets of data on more than 300 families living in one neighborhood of Karakash county. They provide highly detailed, personal information, including national ID numbers, home addresses, history of foreign travel, religious practices and whether or not they are a threat.
WATSON (voice-over): The authors, believed to be Chinese government officials, then decide whether to keep individuals in what the Chinese government calls vocational training centers.
Beijing wants the world to believe this mass job training program is rooting out violent extremism. But several survivors tell CNN, the reality is, these camps were crowded, prisonlike facilities where inmates were subjected to torture.
Due to China's crackdown and a heavy curtain of censorship, independently confirming anything in Xinjiang is incredibly difficult.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why you're here?
On a recent visit to the region, Chinese security forces harassed and blocked CNN 's Matt Rivers from visiting the internment camps.
However, a CNN investigation tracked down Uyghurs living in exile, who verified the identities of at least eight of the families profiled in the leaked report. The investigation takes us to Istanbul, Turkey. Here, I meet Rozinsa Mamattohti, a mother of three from Xinjiang, whose name is on the documents.
ROZINSA MAMATTOHTI, EXILED UYGHUR (from captions): Rozinsa Mamattohti.
WATSON: Rozinsa Mamattohti. That is you, that's your name.
(Speaking foreign language).
MAMATTOHTI: (Speaking foreign language).
WATSON (voice-over): Her name appeared under case number 358, which also revealed that her younger sister, Patem, was sent to a camp in March of 2018 for supposedly violating China's family planning policy; that is, having too many children.
MAMATTOHTI: (Speaking foreign language).
WATSON (voice-over): She says this is the first information she has had about her family in Xinjiang since 2016. Many Uyghurs living overseas say communication with their family back home was completely cut off when China intensified its crackdown in Xinjiang.
But some Uyghurs are risking their lives to expose this sensitive information.
WATSON: This is the first time you are speaking publicly about these documents?
TAHIRJAN ANWAR, UYGHUR ACTIVIST: Yes, it is the first time.
WATSON: Tahirjan Anwar is a Uyghur activist living in exile in the Netherlands. Last summer he received this trove of documents from a source in Xinjiang that he won't identify for their safety.
ANWAR: That was my birthday. I got the attached document and was very surprised. WATSON (voice-over): And it is Anwar, along with a patchwork of other
Uyghurs living in exile, who are sharing this information with the outside world.
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ADRIAN ZENZ, VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION: This document is like a microcosm of what is happening all over Xinjiang.
WATSON (voice-over): Adrian Zenz is a U.S.-based academic who has been studying what he is convinced are internal Chinese government documents.
ZENZ: This is the future of authoritarianism. This is the future of changing populations who do not agree with the main regime in terms of ideologies, virtuality (ph), political identity or other criteria.
WATSON: CNN's data analysis reveals that among at least 484 people sent to camps, five were detained because they communicated with people overseas; 25 were detained for holding a passport without visiting a foreign country.
And the most, 114 people, were labeled a threat for simply having too many children. Those Uyghurs were sent to four different camps, all apparently located within the same community.
Using other open source Chinese government documents, we were able to find the locations of the four facilities, including the number two training center, located near the Karakash train station.
WATSON (voice-over): This is where Rozinsa Mamattohti's second, older sister, Rozniyaz, was sent, according to case number 597.
Her offense?
Having a passport and giving birth to too many children. Rozinsa fears her family could be punished further because she is going public.
WATSON: Why are you showing your face to the outside world?
MAMATTOHTI (from captions): Because I love and miss my parents and my family so much. Because I want to know what happened to them. I want to know if they are alive and well. But if they are dead I need to know that as well.
WATSON (voice-over): CNN reached out to the Chinese foreign ministry and Xinjiang regional government in writing with detailed questions. But Chinese officials did not respond.
In the past, Beijing has strenuously denied allegations of mistreatment and arbitrary detention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
WATSON (voice-over): As for Tahirjan Anwar, he hopes that sharing these documents will force Beijing to ease its crackdown in Xinjiang and lead to information about his own missing loved ones.
ANWAR: This is my father. He is now in the jail. I do not know what exactly crime of him. China's government, let's free my father immediately and let's free all Uyghurs immediately.
WATSON (voice-over): -- Ivan Watson, CNN.
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HOLMES: Adrian Zenz joins me now. He is a senior fellow in China studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Good to see you.
Tell me, what is the most important lesson that can be taken from these documents?
What pressure might they apply?
ZENZ: The documents give us unprecedented detail behind the reasons of why the Uyghurs have been put into reeducation camps and the reasoning behind whether they should be released or not.
It has details about three generations of family members and social circles and also about the so-called religious inheritance circle; meaning, how did somebody find out about praying before meals?
About going to mosques?
This is the level of detail we are speaking about here.
HOLMES: Of course, what does that do to China's narrative, which is, of course, about deradicalization?
It is about fighting terror.
How valid does that argument sound in the face of what we have learned?
ZENZ: The evidence that we have gathered from these new leaked documents indicate that China is really trying to control an entire ethnic group by placing them under a general blanket of suspicion.
A lot of the people in the documents were simply interned for no specific reason other than being labeled on trustworthy. Others were simply said to have been grown up in a family with a religious atmosphere or they have caught "a minor religious infection" quote- unquote.
It is almost like an ideological witch hunt. It is almost like a medieval attempt to stomp out religion that the state is afraid of.
HOLMES: I guess that begs the question, how effective can such actions be?
You would imagine it is unlikely to make Uyghurs magically sympathetic to the Chinese government.
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ZENZ: The system is based on fear and it is replacing trust with control. It is about intimidation. It is about scaring people away from anything religious. It is about creating an atmosphere of preemptive obedience, where you try to make sure to obey every whim of the state, rather than risking internment.
But obviously, can we call the system successful?
Maybe on the surface. Maybe in the short run. But the long-term implications are ones of high risk and possibly great social instability.
HOLMES: What other risks do you mean?
ZENZ: The risk of radicalization. Basically, by treating people this way, Beijing is risking to turn completely normal, healthy citizens into hateful, resentful persons, who, one day, might be liable to be influenced by radical ideas out of hate, resentment and revenge.
HOLMES: You have the locking-up of as many as 1 million people in these camps. That is obviously the priority issue at stake. What is also worrying is the evidence we have seen of the destruction of Uyghur neighborhoods, the purging of the region's culture and mosques and so on.
ZENZ: Yes. The Chinese state is exercising control on a number of levels. It has destroyed mosques. It has destroyed neighborhoods. The main reason is to place people under greater control.
China often wants its minorities to move to urban areas, where they are easier to be controlled by the government. This also includes Tibetans. In order to do so, China is changing entire neighborhoods in order to bring them closer to where the government can keep an eye on them.
HOLMES: Extraordinary. The reality, when it comes to action from the world, outside of China's borders, there have been words of concern and some criticism and so on.
But there has been no real action, has there?
Why is that?
ZENZ: It is unfortunately incredible to see the extent and sway that Beijing has over the country in terms of its economic power. No country, not even Western countries, are risking Beijing's wrath and revenge.
China has found a way to manipulate the world and even to co-opt the United Nations into supporting what it is doing, even in turning 1 million or more Muslims and getting almost 20 Muslim countries to sign a letter condoning this policy.
HOLMES: Adrian Zenz, we will have to leave it there but thank you so much for speaking with us and the work that you do.
ZENZ: Thank you.
HOLMES: We will take a break now. When we come back, in U.S. presidential politics, the focus is on Nevada and that is where front- runner, Bernie Sanders, is facing some opposition on his signature campaign issue. We will have more when we come back.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome back. The early voting in Nevada's Democratic caucuses wraps up in the coming hours, ahead of caucus day itself on Saturday. The state's Democratic Party stopped working with the company behind the app that created all of that chaos in the Iowa caucuses. Instead, a caucus calculator will be used on iPads.
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CNN's Dianne Gallagher reports some volunteers say they're still unclear exactly how that process is going to work.
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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Their biggest concern is, those early votes that are happening now, how exactly they're going to be transmitted to their precincts on caucus day. Early voting is new in Nevada, and they are not completely familiar with this calculator tool that they're expected to use.
Now, we've talked to volunteers who say they haven't seen anything about it, they've been asking the party for more information, and have just been told to basically wait, we're going to get to you. Don't worry about a thing.
We actually observed a training session today and saw screen grabs of what the calculator looks like. They were told kind of how to go through it. But we haven't spoken to any volunteers at all who have actually given this thing a trial run. They're concerned.
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HOLMES: Dianne Gallagher there.
Now, campaigning in Nevada is in full swing, and the outcome of these caucuses is going to offer a little clarity, hopefully, on the candidates' support in what is a diverse state, unlike the first two.
Frontrunner Bernie Sanders is trying to solidify his lead, while the outcome could signal a turning point for Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Jeff Zeleny with more on that.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With your help, we're going to win here in Nevada. JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The
fight is on for Nevada.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is so wonderful to be out of the snow and in this beautiful, sunny state of Nevada.
ZELENY: The first 2020 Democratic contest in the west.
PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know that people in Nevada are taking your responsibility, your influence, your power, that thumb on the scale that you have, so seriously.
ZELENY: Five days before the state's caucuses, early voting is already underway, in the most diverse test yet for the Democratic field.
Front and center is a familiar debate over health care but with a new twist. The state's powerful culinary workers' union strongly opposes Medicare for all, saying abolishing private insurance would take away their hard-fought health insurance plans. It's one of the biggest challenges facing Bernie Sanders, whose support for Medicare for all is at the heart of his candidacy. His rivals are trying to capitalize on the divide, hoping to slow his surge.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No one should be able to tell them they can no longer have that plan. And I'll be damned if we're going to erase the union's efforts.
ZELENY: Joe Biden is trying to revive his campaign in Nevada after lackluster showings in Iowa and New Hampshire. The former vice president said that he was counting on the diverse electorate of African-American and Latino voters in Nevada and beyond to weigh in.
BIDEN: I think that we're just getting there, and we've had less than 2 percent of the vote taken so far, and now we're here in Nevada, and it's going to be up to you to decide how many of us move on.
ZELENY: Naomi Lovato has been uncertain about Biden's strength, but after seeing him today, she believes he still has what it takes to win.
NAOMI LOVATO, NEVADA VOTER: Before, he was a little bit kind of -- he didn't come across with that fire in the gut, but this time he really did. He can do it. I truly believe it in my heart. I really do.
ZELENY: One candidate not competing here is still hanging over the race, former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg. His Democratic rivals are piling on the self-funded billionaire.
SANDERS: Michael Bloomberg, like anybody else, has a right to run for president. He does not have a right to buy the presidency.
ZELENY (on camera): Now Michael Bloomberg is one qualifying poll away from making that debate here later this week. We will find out on Tuesday at midnight if he does qualify.
He is preparing for that debate. His Democratic rivals are, as well, already planning their attacks. They say they have a long record of his to go over. He won't be able to control his own narrative as he has been so far in the race.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Reno, Nevada.
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HOLMES: And do join CNN on Tuesday and on Thursday for five town halls in Nevada. Sanders, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden and Warren all making their case to the voters ahead of next -- this next critical vote, it all starts here at 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., only on CNN.
An American race car driver has been hospitalized after getting into a dramatic and fiery crash at the Daytona 500.
It happened during the final lap of the Florida event. Ryan Newman was in first place when he got clipped, lost control of the car, went into the air after crashing into a wall. The car flipping several times as it was sent flying into the air, as you can see there.
TV commentators said he was taken to the hospital after being taken out of the car, a statement from Newman's racing team says he is currently in serious condition.
The good news is, he does not have life-threatening injuries, we're told.
Some ugly behavior and racist chants at a football match, this time in Portugal. The problem not new. Football, of course, has been struggling with racism at European stadiums. Unusual, though, in Portugal. Christina MacFarlane with the details.
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CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was the moment Moussa Marega had had enough, the Porto striker from Mali, the target of racist abuse and monkey chants after scoring their winning goal.
Pointing to the color of his skin and raising middle fingers to the crowd, Marega attempted to walk off the pitch after being punished by the referee with a yellow card for his reaction, his teammates attempting to stop him, while the club manager reacted angrily to the fans attacking his player.
SERGIO CONCEICAO, MANAGER, FC PORTO (through translator): We are enraged by what happened, I know the passion that exists here in Victoria (ph) for the clubs, but I'm sure most fans don't identify with the attitude of some people who sat on the stands tonight insulting Marega since the warm-up.
PEDRO PINTO, INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL PUNDIT: They are taking it very seriously here in Portugal. It's a country that has not seen that many episodes like this one yesterday. This is very rare here, and people are not even beginning to try to accept it. They're condemning it, and they want to punish those who are -- who are guilty. MACFARLANE: The 28-year-old Marega later took to Instagram, writing,
"I would only say to those racist idiots in the stands, go 'F' yourselves."
He also accused the referee of giving him a yellow card for merely defending the color of his skin.
PIARA POWAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FARE NETWORK: We are seeing players who are hearing the sort of abuse, who want to walk off, and then there are other individual teammates who want to stop them, or the club who disapproves of that sort of action. This is not new. This is something the players are facing every week in international competitions across Europe.
MACFARLANE: Police have now opened an investigation to identify the fans responsible, and the club have called it one of the low moments in the recent history of Portuguese football. Even Portugal's president issued a strong condemnation on Monday. As football continues to grapple with the scourge of racism, this yet another reminder of how players are often left to confront it head on.
Christina MacFarlane, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has pledged billions of dollars to fight climate change. So what's the most meaningful way to spend all that money? We'll hear from an environmental expert coming up next. We'll be right back.
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HOLMES: The world's richest man is putting a portion of his vast wealth behind the fight against climate change. We're talking about the Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, pledging $10 billion to create a fund to support climate change scientists, activists and organizations.
The Bezos Earth Fund, as it's called, will be giving out grants starting this summer in the northern hemisphere. Bezos already spends billions on space technology, because he says it is important for the planet.
Now earlier, I spoke with environmentalist Bill McKibben about the new earth fund's potential impact.
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BILL MCKIBBEN, ENVIRONMENTALIST AND AUTHOR: I'm glad that Mr. Bezos is spending some of it on earth instead of just on outer space, and I think that the places that it's most important to spend it are in standing up to the fossil fuel industry. They're the ones who are driving this crisis now.
We don't know if he will, because Amazon continues to partner with the big oil companies in the hunt for more oil and gas. Their web services are a crucial part of their kind of cloud computing of what the big oil companies are doing.
But if he's serious about reining in climate change, the place it's going to come is if we stand up to these guys.
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HOLMES: And we'll have more from our interview with Bill McKibben ahead in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM. That's an interesting discussion. Do join us for that.
Well, police in England have confirmed the death of a 55-year-old woman who was swept into floodwaters west of Birmingham. Yvonne Booth has been missing since Sunday.
Storm Dennis has prompted a record-breaking number of flood warnings across the U.K., as workers rescue residents by boat in waist-high waters. These are scenes that people in the U.K. are not used to.
Dennis struck Britain nearly a week after Storm Ciara, by the way, wreaked havoc, leaving thousands without electricity.
Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins me now from the CNN Weather Center for more on this.
You don't see stuff like this, and I did -- I did read that the cyclone bomb was the second ever recorded in the north Atlantic. Is that right?
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is. It is an impressive storm, and as you noted, Michael, it came in on the heels of another storm that was just as impressive. So you put these together, and you see why problems are beginning to be kind of experienced across this region.
And images look as such. Here we know of nearly 500 properties that have taken on at least some water across portions of the U.K. in a matter of a 36-hour period.
And speaking of 500, that is roughly the number of flood alerts and warnings that are in place, nine of which considered severe at this hour. And of course, the concern is this is not the only storm. So then we're still deep in the heart of the winter season. Additional wet storms on the horizon here.
And you take a look. Tuesday into Wednesday, we do have medium risk in place across portions of the midlands, work their way into the northern tier of the U.K., the western portion, into Wales. That is also an area of concern.
And what has happened here in recent days, of course, with the previous storm about a week out -- a week ago, groundwater had already been on the rise here. So additional rainfall has essentially pushed that water table right near the surface. So any rainfall begin on top of this, becomes surface flooding. Of course, upwards of 500 properties have taken on water. So when you take a look at the radar imagery, additional wet weather on the horizon here, certainly not good news.
And images, as such as well, Michael here with winds, powerful winds as high as Category 3 equivalent of a hurricane, have been experienced across portions of France into the U.K., the Benelux region, as well. And in fact, when you break the numbers down, we know that the wind reports, 50 plus have come in.
But again, 189-kilometer-per-hour winds. Keep in mind, with the soil is saturated, it doesn't take winds nearly that strong to bring trees down, and that's a concern moving forward, Michael.
HOLMES: Absolutely. Pedram, good to see you. Pedram Javaheri there.
And thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes. WORLD SPORT is next. I'll see you in about 15 minutes with more news.
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