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COVID Variants Could Lead to Many More Deaths in the United States; E.U. Orders Inspection of Belgium's AstraZeneca Site; Fast- Spreading Variants Challenge Vaccine Effort; Inside the Race to Get Vaccines to Poorer Countries; Biden's Challenges at Home and Abroad; U.S. Outraged As Pakistan Supreme Court Orders Release Of Men Convicted In Daniel Pearl Murder; Russian Court Decides Alexey Navalny Will Stay In Detention; Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez And Republicans Ted Cruz Call For Investigation Into Robinhood. Aired 2- 3aET
Aired January 29, 2021 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[02:00:00]
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): Thanks for staying with us, everyone. You're watching a third hour of "CNN Newsroom" with me, John Vause.
And coming up, with new more contagious variants of the coronavirus comes new predictions of a much higher death toll.
A week on the job and it is Joe Biden's world now with a never ending list of problems and challenges at home and abroad.
Plus, shock and outrage after the man who beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl almost two decades ago ordered free by Pakistan's Supreme Court.
More contagious variants of the coronavirus could see another 85,000 deaths in the U.S. by May. That is the forecast from the University of Washington.
One of those variants, first detected in South Africa, has now spread to the U.S. It has been circulating in more than two dozen countries, including Canada, Australia, Japan, and many western European nations.
A new vaccine from Novavax is considered almost 90 percent effective but not against the South African variant. And Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already ordered 60 million doses.
In the meantime, European regulators are expected to decide in the coming days on approval for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The drug maker is disputing claim from German officials that those over the age of 65 should avoid this vaccine.
That is not the only controversy for AstraZeneca. Reports of production problems at the company's Belgian plant have prompted an investigation. Details now from CNN's Melissa Bell. (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: It's a sign of the growing distrust between the E.U. and Astrazeneca, an inspection carried out here at one of the main sites on the continent where the AstraZeneca vaccine is produced.
Earlier this week, the CEO of AstraZeneca had claimed that the shortfall that AstraZeneca has announced in its delivery vaccines to the E.U. was the result of production difficulties at this plot. Now, that inspection was aimed at finding out whether that was indeed the case.
It came at the request of the European Union, which has also made claim that it wants to keep a much closer eye on vaccine exports going forward. The E.U. is trying to figure out where those shortfalls have come from. This, of course, is even as it comes under pressure over the slow rollout of its vaccination programs in several countries.
In Spain, Madrid has announced a freeze for the next couple of weeks on its vaccination rollout until they can get more doses into the country and elsewhere, shortages as well.
Overall, the E.U. says it wants to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the summer. So far, the figure is just two percent of people who've been vaccinated here in Europe.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Seneffe, Belgium.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
VAUSE (on camera): Joining us this hour from Los Angeles is Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, a CNN medical analyst and a viral specialist. It is good to have you with us again, Dr. Rodriguez.
JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, INTERNAL MEDICINE AND VIRAL SPECIALIST: Thank you.
VAUSE: Again, big picture. It seems to be worldwide. These mass vaccination programs are struggling to some degree. And the more time it takes to reach herd immunity, the more time the virus has to mutate, possibly to a variant which vaccines will have no effect.
That looming threat doesn't seem to be reflected in the urgency right now of trying to fix supply chain. If you had your way, what should be happening that is not happening right now?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, if I had my way, and I've changed actually my mind over the past two or three weeks, I think the most important thing is to vaccinate as many people as possible, especially here in the United States where up to 40 percent of the people don't want to get vaccinated.
I would probably start vaccinating everybody over 60. I would then probably start vaccinating people that are in sub-groups and different ethnicities that are at higher risk for death. And then I would just open it up for anybody, seriously, who wants to get vaccinated, because replication of the virus means mutation, means resistance. So, that is what I would do.
And as a government, I would be very tightly overseeing these pharmaceutical companies and their accountability of production. It seems easy, but I know that it is not.
VAUSE: Yeah. And also, there is this need for, I guess, rapid vaccination centers essentially operating 24/7, right?
RODRIGUEZ: That's correct. Listen, I wish that there would be a call out there to physicians and nurses like myself, I know that they've talked about it, for us to work graveyard shifts, for us to work weekends, and really vaccinate 24/7.
VAUSE: Yeah. This variant which is first detected in South Africa, has now been found in the U.S., in South Carolina.
The CDC issued a statement, which read in part, at this time, we have no evidence that infections by the variant cause more severe disease. Like the U.K. and Brazilian variants, preliminary data suggests this variant may spread more easily and quickly than other variants. OK.
[02:04:59]
VAUSE: With slow roll of vaccines, that brings us back to this important question of face masks. Washington Post is reporting that Germany on Tuesday night made it mandatory for people riding on public transport or in supermarkets to wear medical-style masks, either N95s, the Chinese or European equivalent, the KN95 or FF -- yeah, the surgical mask basically.
At the very least, would you advise now maybe double masking for people at this point?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, I would advise that if people can get an N95 and maybe even a KN95, which is one that is made in China and not really overseen, that that's the best thing they could wear.
If they can't wear that, then they should wear probably a surgical mask, which you can get on any of the web sort of markets and, you know, cover that with a cloth mask.
The worst thing is a cloth mask or one of those bibs that you just put over your face or some sort of handkerchief. It only protects around 25 percent.
Replication means mutation means variance. So those who are not covering themselves and think that they are not getting sick, they are actually contributing to the economy not rolling to stores not opening. Everybody is playing a role here.
VAUSE: Yeah. Well, the drug maker Novavax, which carried out a small trial of its vaccine in South Africa, there is mixed news. The New York Times had this headline which kind of sums it up. Novavax's vaccine works well except on variant first found in South Africa. The early tests in Britain found an efficacy close to 90 percent. But in South Africa, it fell to 60 percent among those in the trial whose immune system was not compromised with HIV. It then fell to 50 percent when volunteers with HIV were included. It seems that result from South Africa, that could have global consequences here.
RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely, it could. For example, in the U.K., it seems that Novavax vaccine is fine against even the U.K. variant. But what is more scary to me, John, is that in the South African study, out of the 15 people that received the vaccine that got COVID, 90 percent of them had the South African variant.
So most of these vaccines have sort of been guided to attack what is called the spike protein, where the virus attaches to the human cells, and it is that very spike protein that is mutating. So we don't have the definitive answers yet. But I just don't like the way where this is going right now.
VAUSE: Yeah. That, in particular, is incredible and also troubling. We are out of time. Dr. Rodriguez, as always, thank you. I appreciate you being with us.
RODRIGUEZ: Thanks, John.
VAUSE: A team of 13 investigators in Wuhan, China is now out of quarantine and started their investigation into just where the coronavirus came from.
The experts met with Chinese scientists and officials on Friday. The team is also planning to visit labs, markets, and hospitals in Wuhan. This is more than a year after reporting the world's first outbreak of the coronavirus.
Four hundred million more doses of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine will be headed to Africa, part of the African Union's plans to vaccinate just over half of the continent's 1.3 billion people within three years. Two hundred and 70 million doses are already on order and millions of doses will come from the World Health Organization's COVAX program. Still, only half of the population will be vaccinated.
And once the nations have taken the lead in buying up vaccines, then that leaves two options to fight the virus in other parts of the world.
CNN's Ivan Watson is live for this. He has been following the story for a while now. So exactly what now can these poor nations do if (INAUDIBLE) the vaccine market?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): They're stuck waiting because while the world's wealthier nations are -- some of them are in dispute with vaccine manufacturers over contract or they are seeing rollout -- of limited supplies of vaccines, in some of the world's poorer countries, vaccines haven't even really appeared yet.
For example, the head of the WHO said on January 18th that one lower income country had only received 25 vaccines, total 25 as of January 18th. There is an international initiative that is designed to help address this growing vaccine divide.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
WATSON (voice-over): In western countries, the first coronavirus vaccines arrived with great fanfare, generating excitement and hope. But in most of the world's poorer countries like Pakistan, vaccine distribution hasn't even begun. This hospital in Karachi is so full there aren't enough beds for all the COVID-19 patients.
NASHWA AHMAD, COORDINATOR, COVID-19 SERVICES, SOUTH CITY HOSPITAL: We are full, we have patients waiting, we have families who are suffering, we have patients at home, sick patients at home, patients who are on oxygen who just don't have space in hospitals.
WATSON (voice-over): Dr. Nashwa Ahmad says she's discouraged at the lack of available vaccines.
AHMAD: The vaccine is not here in this country for the foreseeable future. That means our health care workers still have to continue to do their jobs, endless hours, without the protection of the vaccine.
[02:10:04]
AHMAD: It's very difficult.
WATSON (voice-over): Help is on the way. The COVAX facility is a global initiative established after the start of the pandemic. It has the ambitious goal of distributing some two billion doses of vaccine by the end of 2021.
AURELIA NGUYEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, COVAX: This is an unprecedented effort. We have never rolled out this number of vaccines in this short time.
WATSON (voice-over): Most of the doses are to be given to the world's 92 poorest countries for free.
NGUYEN: The COVAX facility is really built around fair and equitable access so that no country and no person who needs the vaccine is left behind regardless of their economic status.
WATSON (voice-over): COVAX is a partnership of several international health organizations. It will distribute vaccines through UNICEF, which has considerable experience leading vaccination campaigns against other diseases in the developing world.
But COVAX distribution isn't expected to start until February, in part due to the long wait for the World Health Organization to approve vaccines for emergency use.
BENJAMIN SCHREIBER, DEPUTY CHIEF, GLOBAL IMMUNIZATION PROGRAM, UNICEF: Countries are looking at COVAX and don't see yet vaccines arriving, while they see some countries are making bilateral deals and that creates kind of a panic. WATSON (voice-over): Some wealthier countries have been scooping up limited supplies of COVID vaccine for themselves.
JEROME KIM, DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL VACCINE INSTITUTE: Vaccine nationalism is the evil twin of COVAX. A lot of the countries that signed up for COVAX, the high income countries in particular, hedge their bets by putting in pre-orders for COVID-19 vaccines.
WATSON (voice-over): The head of the WHO denounces this practice.
TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: I need to be blunt. The world is on the brink of catastrophic moral failure. And the prize of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries.
WATSON (voice-over): While it waits for COVAX, the Pakistani government expects to receive a welcome gift of half a million doses of Chinese's Sinopharm vaccine in coming days, a drop in the bucket for a population of more than 200 million. Even when the vaccine rolls out, convincing a skeptical public to take it may be an uphill battle.
UNKNOWN (through translator): Why would I get vaccinated? There's no such thing as corona. It's a lie.
WATSON (voice-over): Defeating the virus will also require fighting mistrust of government and the spread of disinformation.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
WATSON (on camera): So the hope here is that in the coming months, John, there will be more vaccines that will have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization and that the manufacturers will be able to scale up their production so that COVAS can meet this ambitious goal of distributing two billion doses around the world by the end of the year.
An interesting footnote is that some two-thirds of the financing for this initiative, which is a total of around $6 billion, $4 billion of that actually comes from the U.S. Congress.
In the midst of that debate at the end of December over whether or not to give 600 or $2,000 to all Americans, and that got involved with President Trump, the package that finally passed the U.S. Congress included this funding for the COVAX initiative.
Even though the U.S. wasn't part of the initiative and since the Biden administration's inauguration, it has now signalled that it is joining the COVAX initiative. One notable absence is Russia is not part of COVAX, even though it has developed its own COVID vaccine. John?
VAUSE: Ivan, thank you. CNN's Ivan Watson there live for us in Hong Kong.
We will take a short break. When we come back, tackling the health and economic crisis at home while repairing America's image (INAUDIBLE) alliances abroad. It's a lot for Joe Biden. Can he get all of this done?
Also ahead, the man convicted of killing American journalist Daniel Pearl almost two decades ago could soon walk free. We will have reaction from Daniel's father to that court ruling.
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VAUSE (on camera): Since the end of World War II has the U.S. economy seen a contraction like the one caused by the pandemic in 2020. What started out as a health crisis is now an economic emergency, adding renewed urgency to President Joe Biden's relief proposal with nearly $2 trillion.
We have more now from CNN's Phil Mattingly.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The first thing I got to do is get this COVID vaccine passed.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But President Joe Biden's goal of a bipartisan coronavirus relief package may be slipping away.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are not going to do this in a piecemeal way or break apart a big package.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The White House and the allies on Capitol Hill, ready to press forward.
PSAKI: Republicans can still vote for a package, even if it goes through with reconciliation. There is no blood oath, anybody signs. They're able to support it regardless.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And to White House officials, including the president himself, continued to have discussions with Republicans in search of a path forward.
PSAKI: He wants this to be a bipartisan package. He's listening to Democrats and Republicans, we all are, to ensure that that is what it looks like at the end of the day.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But Biden has also made clear splitting key elements out to reach a deal is not on the table.
BIDEN: Time is of the essence. And I must tell you I'm reluctant to cherry pick and take out one or two items here and then have to go through it again, because these all are kind of, they go sort of hand and glove.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And Democrats on Capitol Hill are increasingly convinced a deal with any Republicans on Biden's $1.9 trillion proposal is simply not possible, sources say.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): The smartest thing we can do is act big.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And they are ready to push ahead on a partisan basis.
NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We would hope that we would have bipartisan cooperation but we're not taking any tools off the table should they not.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): All as the depth of the economic destruction rocked by COVID comes to light. The U.S. economy contracted 3.5 percent in 2020, the first annual decline since the 2008 financial crisis and the worst drop since 1946.
BIDEN: (INAUDIBLE) COVID crisis.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): The damage from the pandemic also driving Biden's newest executive action on Obamacare. The man who made BFD --
BIDEN: This is a big (beep) deal.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): -- now reopening enrolment for the law that is still was so big, as he presses to undo his predecessor's efforts to kill the law.
BIDEN: Basically the best way to describe it is to undo the damage Trump has done.
MATTINGLY (on camera): And while President Biden's first eight days in office have focused largely on executive actions, there's no question about it when you talk to top White House advisers. That COVID relief package, that $1.9 trillion proposal, is the focal point of the administration right now.
The president, as I noted in the piece, has been reaching out to Republicans. He'd spoken to two Republican senators behind the scenes, Rob Portman of Ohio, also Susan Collins in Maine, seeing if he can bring them along.
But again, the reality right now both on Capitol Hill and in the White House is there is recognition, that a bipartisan proposal given how big Democrats want to go, Democrats including President Biden, seems very out of reach at the moment.
But they have the numbers right now, no matter how slim those margins are to get something passed, and both Biden and his top economic advisers have said going big and acting fast is their number one priority, the number one priority that likely at this point in time won't get Republican support.
[02:20:02]
MATTINGLY (on camera): Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEO TAPE) VAUSE (on camera): It's Joe Biden's world now and the question is can he fix it? Can he rebuild global alliances that fell victim to a Trump foreign policy best likened to Godzilla in a China shop? Can Biden refill faith to democracy now in retreat around the world?
The new administration says in this first year of Biden's presidency, there will be a global summit of democracy to renew the spirit and the shared purpose of the nations of the free world. Just add that to an already long to-do list.
Joining us now from Singapore is Parag Khanna, former senior adviser to U.S. Defense Department and author of "The Future is Asian: Global Order in the 21st Century." It has been years and it is good to have you with us for the first time, Parag.
PARAG KHANNA, AUTHOR, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT: likewise, John. How are you?
VAUSE (on camera): God, I'm pretty good. Thanks. OK. It has been like "Back to the Future" this week at the White House. After Biden and Putin spoke on Wednesday, there are a lot of these things. It was a blast from the pre-Trump past. Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Just 144 words, a lot, but at least there was official word these two leaders spoke. It seems the conversation was nothing like the last four years. A little more now from the U.S. president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I find that we can both operate in the mutual self-interest of our countries as a New START agreement and making clear to Russia that we are -- we are very concerned about the behavior, whether it's Navalny, whether it's the solar winds or whether it's reports of bounties on the heads of Americans in Afghanistan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE (on camera): In many ways, that is a return to how the U.S. would deal with Russia in the past. Is Russia now willing to play by the old rules?
KHANNA: Well, that's a good question. You know, we -- they at least got the elephant in the room out of the way, so to speak, the START agreement, agreeing to a five-year extension of the START agreement in terms of freezing the strategic nuclear arsenals.
But two big challenges remain, even within that. The first is, of course, Russia's development of smaller range nuclear warheads. The second is whether or not China can be brought into that START agreement. The U.S. is going to need Russia's help on that front. But at the moment, there is little interest from China.
So, whether or not there is a change in mood or personal chemistry or dynamic, the strategic questions still lie ahead. Let's remember, when it comes to Alexei Navalny, given the pressure that is being put on Putin's regime right now, the Biden administration doesn't want to take any major steps towards political reconciliation that would be seen as legitimizing Putin when, in fact, he's on the ropes.
VAUSE (on camera): There is also climate change and the U.S. is now back in that Paris accord. That was kind of the easy part. There is another international agreement, which broken by the United States and broken by Donald Trump. So this seems a little more challenging, the Iran nuclear deal. Here is the new secretary of state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: If Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States will do the same thing, and then we would use that as a platform to build with our allies and partners, what we call the longer and stronger agreement, and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran. But we are a long ways from that point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE (voice-over): Given the fact there was a U.S. president who violated the terms of the deal and until recently Iran remained in compliance, you know, it does get to the question of moral authority and, I guess, leverage. Are there limit in the options here for the Biden administration because of the way the Trump administration actually handled this?
KHANNA: Well, there is no question that the Biden administration does want to go back to JCPOA. After all, it was former Secretary of State John Kerry and current national security advisor Jake Sullivan who were intimately involved in those negotiations. And there is evidence in sentiment that Iran does, as well.
But let's remember that Trump's maximum pressure campaign did a lot of damage. The Iranians have a strong (INAUDIBLE) to want to come back to the table. However, the new secretary of state in his comment alluded to a sort of chicken and egg problem that we have here because Iran also has statements or even legislations that say that should there not be sanctions relief, Iran will go back to uranium enrichment.
So the question is who is going to move first? Washington is divided about whether to offer or whether to push harder. Let us remember some of the strategic backdrop, the Abraham, of course. There is the stronger Israeli government alignment with Arab countries to keep Iran cornered while on the other hand, Russia and China continued to embrace Iran quite openly with new energy agreements and other investments.
VAUSE: And with China, it does seem that the days of launching missiles in Syria while enjoying chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago are over. But in many ways, Biden seems OK to continue with a number of Trump's economic policies like tariffs. What do expect Beijing to do?
[02:25:03] KHANNA: China's response to what the U.S. has been doing and is going to continue to do is probably more of the same. Let's remember that -- you and I know this from our time when we met in Beijing -- China has been pursuing this policy of strategic autonomy of self-reliance, of moving up the value chain, a neomercantilism globally, for 20, 25 years. That is what its economic and technological policies have been about, and now it goes under the name dual circulation, for example.
But China is going to do what it has been doing. There has been some effect in terms of the U.S. pushback. Just look at how Huawei share, for example, of the global telecom. Equipment market has dropped considerably in the last few years. So I think those tensions will continue.
However, the Biden ministration is going to be more focused on bringing in a coalition of countries. Some would call it the T10 or the D10, so democratic countries with shared technology ambitions to pull the production of sensitive equipment, electronics, medical equipment, and other sorts of devices out of China into allied countries like India, Southeast Asia and others.
That, in terms of creating a parallel set of supply chain, also will have a dent in China's ability to dominate some markets where it has had a very long runway.
VAUSE: Final question, Parag. It has been four years of a lot of damage done to the post World War II system which was built by the United States, of international corporations. This is the question. Biden, 78 years old, I mean, is he the guy who can actually repair that damage in such a short period of time?
KHANNA: Well, in the beginning, you said it is worst than a bullet at a China shop. It has been like Godzilla has been in the China shop. I don't think that the world is, you know, can be fixed, you know, rebuilt quite so quickly.
I think it is really going to have to a much more collective effort among like-minded countries, issue by issue. Let's take the economic system, for example, in terms of getting the U.S. back in a certain trade agreements. That will be critical in terms of promoting common standards, elevating the standards of existing trade agreements.
That's just one area. Goal of financial system, confidence and trust around areas like vaccine distribution, climate change, it really is more than Biden can do alone.
And, of course, as we've seen in the case of Iran, we talked about Russia, these are regimes that have long outlasted the last several U.S. presidents. And given, as you indicated in your question, Biden's age, they are really going to continue with their business as usual. Let's face it.
VAUSE: Yeah. It's interesting to think what the world would be like right now with the pandemic if there had been no international institutions operating as they should have been.
Parag, it is great to see you. Thank you so much.
KHANNA: Likewise.
VAUSE: Take care. Coming up on "CNN Newsroom," outrage after Pakistani court orders the release of the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl. We will go to Pakistan live in a moment.
And the shockingly steep gains for GameStop hit a wall on Thursday after trading was restricted. Are the days of this market revolt now numbered?
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[02:30:00]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN HOST: Welcome back everybody. I'm John Vause. The United States is being highly critical of Pakistan's Supreme Court for ordering the release of four men convicted of kidnapping and beheading American journalist Daniel pearl.
The White House called it affront to terrorism victims everywhere. CNN's Nic Robertson has details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Daniel Pearl's brutal murder was one of the most shocking events in the months following the 911 terror attacks. The Wall Street Journal reporter was kidnapped January 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan while investigating Islamic militant groups. He was held for more than a week, then Pearl's abductors beheaded him and send the video to U.S. officials.
Four men were arrested later in 2002 and convicted of Pearl's kidnap and murder. One of them British national Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh was given the death penalty. Now 19 years later, Pakistan's Supreme Court has ruled the men should go free.
MAHMOOD SHEIKH, LAWYER OF AHMED OMAR SAEED SHEIKH: The court has ordered that all four of them, all four accused be released forthwith if they are not required in any other case.
ROBERTSON: The United States blasted the decision as an outrage.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This decision to exonerate and release Sheikh and the other suspects is an affront to terrorism victims everywhere including in Pakistan.
ROBERTSON: Due to Pearl, Daniel's father told Christian Amanpour the decision would tarnish Pakistan.
JUDEA PEARL, DANIEL PEARL'S FATHER: What the Supreme Court of Pakistan has done is ending an indictment over the entire nation for one of the most horrific crime in the 21st century, a crime against humanity, against journalism and against the core of our civilization. ROBERTSON: So what happened? Last year a provincial court overturned
the conviction of three men and reduced Sheikh's sentence to seven years, time that he had already served. Both the Pearl family and Pakistan's government appealed to the country's Supreme Court but on Thursday, the court ruled against them and acquitted Omar Sheikh.
SHEIKH: The court has come out to say that there is no offence that he has committed in this case and he should not have been in prison even for one day.
ROBERTSON: So what happens next? Here's one possibility.
PSAKI: We call on the Pakistani government to expeditiously review its legal options including allowing the United States to prosecute Sheikh for the brutal murder of an American citizen and journalist.
ROBERTSON: For now, all four men remain in detention waiting to see what the Pakistan government and the new Biden administration do next. Nic Robertson CNN, London.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Live now to Islamabad where CNN producer Sophia Saifi is following the story for us and you know I guess the question now is what is the reaction being in Pakistan? I mean there seemed to be outrage I mean years ago when this first happened but I guess things have changed.
SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: I mean there is outrage amongst journalists, amongst activists but there is a strong lobby amongst Pakistanis who think that this is showcasing the sovereignty of Pakistan this decision by the Supreme Court so it's kind of split, the reaction that we have here in Pakistan.
There's outrage of course but there's also another lobby which thinks it's for the benefit of the country's image in showcasing its sovereignty and its power in the world allegedly so there's that but there's of course concern because this is the government of Pakistan which has also appealed against those acquittals and now have got information from the Attorney General's office, the Pakistani Attorney General's office that they will be finding what is called a review petition which is basically presenting the same case in front of the same judges who made yesterday's decision, two of whom you know ruled in favor of the acquittal and then they're going to review it to see if there were any legal irregularities in that decision.
That could happen any time next week. The Sind government, the provincial government of Sind is trying to issue a detention order to keep these men in detention. They're still very much in jail in Karachi so you know there is - all eyes are on that basically to see what happens whether they will be released and whether you know the decision by the United States.
[02:35:00]
They made a statement to the state department said that they would want to prosecute Ahmed Omar Sheikh on U.S. soil. Now Pakistan and the United States don't really seem to have an extradition treaty so it remains to be seen how that will play out as well. They are all on the exit control list of Pakistan which is basically a no fly list, all of the four so they can't really leave the country even if they are released but it's just something to monitor.
On this Friday which is basically a half-day in Pakistan so all offices would close within the next two hours and we'll just have to wait over the weekend then if there aren't any further developments today. John.
VAUSE: Sophia, thank you for the update. Sophia Saifi there in Islamabad. A Russian court has rejected Alexey Navalny's appeal and says the opposition leader will stay in detention ahead of a court date next month. Navalny was detained last week returning from Germany.
He spent five months there recovering from Novichok poisoning. Russia's police say they had raided Navalny's apartment and say he breached his suspended sentence. Navalny says the case was politically motivated. Since his detention thousands across Russia had protested. More demonstrations are planned and Navalny says he's cheering them on from detention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEXEY NAVALNY, RUSSIA OPPOSITION LEADER (through translator): I want to say you won't succeed in frightening us. In fact we are the majority. You won't manage to frighten dozens of millions of people who were robbed by those in power despite the fact that those people who are now under arrest face hardships. I want to express my huge support to those who take to the streets because it's them who in fact are the last line of defense against our country sliding into total deterioration and so that those in power now want to steal all of it.
VAUSE: Now to Poland protesters who were out in force for a second night after the government imposing a total ban on abortion. Crowds who turned out in the capitol were also marching against these new restrictions which limit abortions to cases of rape, incest or danger to mother's life.
A Polish court handed down a decision in October which sparked massive protests back then. The law only just went into effect this week and there are more demonstrations planned for Friday.
Coming up, an army of amateur investors take a hit after a no-fee trading app restricts the red hot GameStop stock and then relents just a little but only after causing an uproar. A lot to discuss after a short break.
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VAUSE: Well, the hedge funds losing the GameStop battle but actually winning the war. Short sellers took a huge hit this week with struggling stocks they wanted to fail actually enjoyed sudden stunning gains. That was because of an indie army of Reddit investors but the tides turned Thursday when a no-fee online broker which caters to millennials and promises to democratize finance restricted trading of these fallen out stocks.
And that did not go over well. A class action lawsuit has been filed against Robinhood which was now says it will allow limited buying of stocks come Friday. A congressional committee also will look into the market turbulence.
[02:40:00]
More now from CNN's Emerging Markets Editor John Defterios live for us in Abu Dhabi. What is interesting though is that it took you know, this turmoil on Wall Street to get the comedian Jon Stewart said, he put up a tweet about it.
He's basically said "the Redditors are cheating. They're joining a party Wall Street insiders have been enjoying for years. Don't shut them down. Maybe sue them for copyright infringement instead. Haha. We've learned nothing from 2008."
And it's a fairly good point that Jon Stewart is making here. They have not done anything wrong so what role can the regulators play?
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, that's an interesting point that you raise here John because it could redefine what is insider trading. Right now it's trading that's secret information but the suggestion is here that the mob is acting in unison on social media platforms and they're there for manipulating stocks but I don't see any rules broken just yet.
They may have to redefine the playbook if you will but I have to say that this David versus Goliath scenario here is kind of rattling Wall Street at its core and it's the volatility which is also quite radical at the same time. Let's take a look at those three major stocks that have been trading quite widely over the last month or so of trading here.
GameStop is the most extreme one, we have AMC Entertainment and then Bed, Bath and Beyond. That was three of the 13 that the group Robinhood decided to stop the purchases of. They be allowed a limited selling depending on your account though allow a limited trade but they said they are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
They have to monitor the reserves of their clients but also have the capital reserves to handle that volatility of the train. Here's the CEO speaking to CNN.
VLAD TENEV, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, ROBINHOOD: Robinhood as a brokerage has lots of financial requirements, SEC requirements. We have to put up money at clearing houses. The amount of money that we have to put up depends on market volatility and we're in historic - we're is a historic situation where there's a lot of activity and a lot of buying concentrated in a relatively small number of symbols that are going viral on social media. So we haven't really seen anything like this before and to prudently
manage the risk and the deposit requirements, we had to restrict buying in these 13 stocks.
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DEFTERIOS: It's also you know how the market is John, a lot of rumors that Robinhood was influenced by some of the Wall Street hedge funds saying look, knock it off and halt the purchases here so that's going to be investigated and it's created some very odd bedfellows or alliances on Capitol Hill.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive left representative of the Bronx and Ted Cruz, the conservative senator from Texas, both saying Hey, you're squeezing the little guy. Why is that? They finally have the voice on Wall Street but they're promising investigations on behalf of the day traders as regulators are starting to say how much of a threat is this to the system overall.
VAUSE: Another odd Jon Stewart and Rush Limbaugh, both in agreement that it's all about preventing the little people from making money. John Defterios in Abu Dhabi, thank you. Take care. And thank you for watching CNN Newsroom. I'm John Vause. World Sport is up next.
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[02:45:00]
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LINDA BEIGEL SHULMAN, MOTHER OF PARKLAND HERO SCOTT BEIGEL: Finally coming to his own and learned to love life and to be a mentor and love the kids that he could help. You know, especially - especially the child who maybe wasn't the most popular or having - having a hard time you know, he - a quick story.
He in the grocery store, he saw - he saw a youngster having a hard time with his mom and the youngster was carrying on and Scott went down and went over to him and said you know is it really that bad? Let's talk about it. What is it really that bad.
And you know, or in camp, when he was a counsellor in camp, he had one of the campers who wasn't there. You know when he was younger he had just come into camp maybe when he was nine or ten and everybody else had started when they were younger and he really wasn't in a group and couldn't find his way and he wasn't you know, he wasn't very sports minded.
And Scott said to him you know what is it that you really like to do and he said you know, I like crafts and you know maybe I'd like to be in one of the shows and again by the end of the summer, that child was happy and got an award where there was an award from the theater group or whether it was award from arts and crafts.
Scott really loved helping the underdogs so to speak and that was Scott. Scott did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth and we always say you know, let's not forget from where we came and he never forgot from where he came and he passed that along.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Guess what? Got one hell of a mama. One hell of a mama. Thank you so much Linda. Thank you for honoring us with his memory and for speaking the truth. OK? We love you and you come back anytime.
BEIGEL SHULMAN: Thank you Don. Thank you so much.
LEMON: Thank you. We'll be back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[02:50:00]
LEMON: So with a pandemic raging President Joe Biden is giving people another chance to sign up for Obamacare. Open enrolment which the Trump administration cut in half to just six weeks ended on December 15. Biden signing an executive action today that calls on DHS to reopen enrolment on healthcare.gov from February 15 to May 15.
So joining me now is Dr. Michael Osterholm. He's the Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy and a former Biden coronavirus adviser. Thank you Sir so good to have you on. You can talk to us about a host of things. You know about all of this stuff. So we know a lot of people are hurting during this pandemic.
Medicaid enrolment has jumped. There is about 15 million of uninsured people who could now get coverage on the exchanges. Does that help in this war on the virus?
DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: It absolutely helps and this war and we need more. Right now so many small businesses and people who work in those small businesses are suffering mightily and we want them to do the right thing and I think small businesses want to do the right thing.
They don't want to be open and transmitting the virus when we see all the levels of virus like we've recently seen in our communities so anything Congress can do right now to help move forward. The President's plan will help us immensely out here in the field.
LEMON: Two cases of the South African coronavirus variant have been discovered in South Carolina and officials say the two adults have no travel history, no connection to each other. It is clear that this is spreading in this country. Should another lockdown be imposed?
OSTERHOLM: Well, first of all when we talk about these variants, let's just be clear, these are mutated viruses that have spread from their origin. In this case we talk about the South African origin or the Brazilian origin, we also talk about the U.K. variant. Right now the U.K. is clearly throughout almost all the United States.
It's spreading probably very quickly. We don't have a good system in place to detect that. We are the 42nd in the world as far as countries go in sequencing these viruses. We've got to change that the current administration has vowed to do just that and that's important.
As far as the South African and the Brazilian variants which we've just reported on this past week, they too are here now. They're spreading and this really poses a significant challenge for us. In terms of what do we do about it? Well, I think right now we have to help Americans understand yes, the case numbers are dropping.
They've gone from 300,000 cases a day to 150,000 cases a day but these are what I call baseline numbers. Think about when it used to be 32,000 or 60,000 or 70,000 or a big number. We are at a very high number now and one particular variant, the U.K. variant has the possibility of raising the number of cases in this country mightily over the course of the next 6 to 14 weeks.
And so I think we're going to have a whole new round of responses to this - to this virus in particular and I guess just to sum it up, I'd say Don, we're really good at pumping the brakes after the car's been wrapped around the tree. We need to look at what we can do now to hold back those numbers of cases from getting to that large number.
LEMON: So then what about the speaking of what - what about possibility of a mandatory quarantine for anyone traveling into the country at this point?
OSTERHOLM: Well, since right now we are doing that with the travel restrictions but you know make no mistake, the virus is already here. If another person did not enter the United States in the next six months, we've got all the virus we need right here to spread so it's important that surely we slow down the international spread of these viruses but everyone understand they're here now.
They're going through our communities as we wake and as we sleep and that's what we have to understand. That's why we need to be really much better prepared and not be lulled into this oh boy, look at it, we're over the hump you know, we've beaten this thing. We have not and vaccine is so important but understand the amount of vaccine we're going to have available over the course of the next 60 to 70 days is going only vaccinate about 12 percent of our population.
[02:55:00]
So that too is not nearly enough to attack this so we really have to understand the next 6 to 14 weeks could be the very darkest of the entire pandemic and we've got to start planning for that right now.
LEMON: Doctor, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
OSTERHOLM: Thank you.
LEMON: A Trump supporter who threatened to attack Democrats charged after being found with five pipe bombs and that's not the only thing the FBI discovered on the man that's deeply disturbing.
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LEMON: So take this. A supporter of the former president, former President Trump facing federal charges after law enforcement discovered five pipe bombs, explosive material and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his home. OK? Authorities say that California Ian Rogers.
