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Russian Prosecutors Seek Jail Term for Navalny; Investigators Recommend No Charges in Killing of Rioter; Capitol Siege; McConnell: Loony Lies are Cancer for the Republican Party; India's Mass Vaccination Plan Slows over Vaccine Doubts; Japan Expected to Extend State of Emergency in Some Areas; Navalny's Court Hearing Today; NLD Calls For Release Of Senior Leaders In Myanmar; If Virus Can't Duplicate, It Can't Mutate. We Need To Vaccinate; WHO Team In Wuhan, Investigation Update. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired February 02, 2021 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
JOHN VAUSE, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: While the U.S. considers reimposing sanctions on Myanmar after a military coup, across the country there is relevant calm. Troops, riot police and checkpoints but no protests.
A Moscow court expected to sentence opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, to years in prison, a move likely to increase its credibility and popularity at Vladimir Putin's expense.
And India, the first country to roll it a nationwide inoculation program, aiming to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people. But like so many other countries, problems abound.
We begin this hour with new developments for Myanmar where the National League for Democracy is calling for the immediate release of senior party leaders detained in Monday's coup.
The military overthrew the civilian government saying it was in response to widespread election fraud. Soldiers are now deployed outside a government guesthouse where political leaders are reportedly being held.
The international condemnation to the coup has been swift. The U.N. Security Council will meet behind closed doors in the coming hours to discuss what's going on and an appropriate response.
CNN's Will Ripley has the latest now from Hong Kong.
What is interesting is that there is reports that people are angry about what's happened but, for the most part, there is calm, there are no protests out on the streets, no one's calling for Aung San Suu Kyi's release, at this point at least.
So what's the latest on the situation that we know about? At this point? WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT:. People on the ground say at this
point things are quiet. And in some ways, and when you look at the images of markets open -- yes, there are checkpoints at Napador but in Yangon, in particular, there is not a hugely visible police and military presence with the exception of the fact that journalists when they try to film public scenes, police are telling them to stop.
But in terms of where the country goes now that they've elected with an overwhelming mandate the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi -- who's now once again under house arrest or detained at a guest house, perhaps not at her house that she spent the better part of 15 years in detention -- under house arrest at the hands of the same military that's doing this again.
After she was criticized globally for defending the military's actions against the Rohingya, it's just -- I think at this stage, there's a lot of uncertainty about what is going to happen.
Is Myanmar going to return to 50 years of brutal dictatorship or are they going to try to continue this facade of democracy but -- to investigate their unfounded claims of election fraud and then hold another election but somehow hope that the result or maybe even guarantee the result is more favorable to them?
Because, at the end of the day, the people clearly in charge of the military were not happy that they won an embarrassingly small number of seats in parliament. They raised objections with the civilian government, they felt that those objections were either ignored or dismissed or not properly investigated.
The civilian government saying ten-and-a-half million potentially suspicious votes just didn't happen in Myanmar, they said that was not reality.
But the military decided -- and they deliberately helped write the constitution -- which allowed them to declare this state of emergency, pass over control away from the civilians into the hands of a military official while they try to get a quote/unquote democracy with the people in charge that they want in charge.
VAUSE: What seems odd though, Will, is that for weeks there had been reports of tensions between the military and the civilian leadership of the government, and that this coup was pretty much expected to take place and hadn't yet.
Up until this point, there had been essentially -- at least from what I could tell -- not any real outcry, not any word of warning coming from the international community ahead of the coup.
RIPLEY: And even the United States, John, now is going back and forth inside the White House, according to CNN reporting, whether to even call this a coup.
Because if they do that, they have to cut off the more than $200 million in annual aid that the United States gives to Myanmar which is obviously a developing country. It was once very prosperous but after the Brits handed it back over,
it has fallen into extreme poverty and there's huge numbers of people in the country that are suffering and also suffered at the hands of a brutal dictatorship that suppressed all political dissent.
And over the last decade or so, they've tried this experiment of democracy. The NLD was elected five years ago and then won even more seats this time around with people braving COVID-19 to turn out in huge numbers to vote for the people that they want leading their country.
But the military has always retained control. And unfortunately, there's a lot of condemnation, questions about whether these Western democracies are going to act.
Certainly, China has made it very clear that they're going to work with whomever's in power in Myanmar. Because Myanmar is critical to their interests, to their access to the Indian Ocean.
[01:05:00]
And so China and Beijing giving a very kind of we hope that both sides can work things out under the framework of their constitution. And we were reporting yesterday, John, there were Chinese diplomats meeting with both military and civilian leaders in Myanmar just days ago.
VAUSE: Will, thank you. Will Ripley with the very latest there from Hong Kong. Thank you.
Yanghee Lee is a former U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar. She joins us now from Seoul.
Yanghee Lee, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us.
YANGHEE LEE, FORMER U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON MYANMAR: Thank you for having me on again.
VAUSE: Well, as soon as the military-appointed president was sworn in, he declared a national emergency and, under the constitution, that gave him power to hand, essentially, rule over to the generals. Despite that, is there any doubt that this is a military coup? And the other question is why now?
LEE: It is definitely a military coup. And right now, there's a few speculations that I can make and I can offer.
There are probably three reasons. One is that the NLD won with a larger majority this time. And so the military was becoming more anxious, nervous that their popularity was slipping.
The second reason is that Min Aung Hlaing, the chief commander, he has to step down in June. That worries him and his followers because he has a lot of financial assets within Myanmar and his family does too. And this stepping down with no powers will probably give him less access to his fortunes. Third is that the coronavirus pandemic is the best time for them to
siege power (ph) because they can cut down telecommunications, they can do a complete lockdown, and people will not be receiving information.
VAUSE: Yes. There's already a nighttime curfew in place because of the pandemic. So that may --
LEE: Absolutely.
VAUSE: -- (inaudible), I guess. The overthrow of the civilian government has been widely condemned internationally, the U.S. among others considering new sanctions or reimposing sanctions.
The current U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, supports that move. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM ANDREWS, U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON MYANMAR: The junta has always tried to convince us that it's impervious to international pressure and I'm sure that they will continue to sing that song. But the fact is, they are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Are sanctions right now the only realistic option here for to the international community?
LEE: Well, the international community lifted the sanctions too quickly thinking that Myanmar was already on a right track for democracy.
And I had insisted that -- even the U.S. should not lift the sanctions. This was at the end of the Obama Administration. Targeted sanctions must be in place, targeted sanctions against the military and their cronies and their associates.
Sanctions and an arms embargo, that has to be placed. And I've also advocated for the cessation of military to military cooperation and funding.
VAUSE: While it may seem like it's back to the future in many ways, there are differences compared to 1988 when Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma and was placed under house arrest for more than a decade.
Back then she was considered the Nelson Mandela of Asia. But as supreme leader, she did nothing to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims.
The former U.S. diplomat, Bill Richardson noted this on Twitter --
"Because of Suu Kyi's failure to promote democratic values as Myanmar's de facto leader, she should step aside, let other Myanmar democratic leaders take the reins with international backing and support." Would you agree with that? And how does her fall from grace complicate the international response to the military coup?
LEE: Well, her -- she never was the real human rights beacon, it was the international community that put her up on that pedestal and it was the international community that rightfully took her down from that pedestal. I can understand why Ambassador Richardson is saying that.
There needs to be another second generation -- and this was one of the pitfalls of the NLD, is that they did not cultivate a second generation to replace or to follow this current -- Aung San Suu Kyi and her followers.
VAUSE: Yanghee Lee, thank you so much for being with us, it is always appreciated. Thank you.
LEE: Thank you very much.
VAUSE: And hour from now, a Moscow court will begin hearing a case that could send Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, to prison for the next three-and-a-half years.
The Kremlin critic is accused of violating his parole in a years' old embezzlement case. He returned to Moscow from Germany last month where he was treated for poisoning, allegedly by Russian agents.
[01:10:00]
His supporters have filled the streets of cities across Russia for the past two weekends demanding his release. A monitoring group says police detained more than 5,000 people on Sunday alone.
CNN's Matthew Chance reports now from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SNR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is what the kremlin does when it's threatened. It cracks down hard.
Across Russia, mass protests calling for the release of key opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, were met with more than 5,000 detentions. And, of course, brute force.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER (Speaking in Foreign Language, Not Translated)
CHANCE: In Moscow, this protester was repeatedly shocked with an electric baton. He was hauled away in agony.
"I can't breathe," shouts another as he's held down by riot police in the remote city of Chelyabinsk.
But the heavy-handed tactics don't seem to be easing the public mood.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER (Screams) "We are all really fed up," says this woman. "I've been waiting for the moment when finally revolt and the demonstrations begin," she says.
And this is what's been galvanizing them. Not just the horrific poisoning of Alexei Navalny in Siberia last year, but also his defiant performance since recovery. Returning to Russia to face arrest and calling for more protests from jail.
He now faces a key court hearing to decide if he will spend years behind bars or be freed.
It's Navalny's success online that seems to be needling the Kremlin most of all. His team's latest anti-corruption expose detailing a billion-dollar palace alleged to have been built for Vladimir Putin has now been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube. The Kremlin denies any connection to the building.
But there seems to have been at least one bizarre attempt to bolster Putin's support online.
The video posted on pro-Kremlin media outlets showing factory workers wearing face masks and military style uniforms performing this highly choreographed dance routine to patriotic Russian pop songs. "Putin is our president," they shout at the end.
More seriously, Russian riot police are shown being prepped to quash the demonstrations.
"The country is proud of you," they're told by their commander, "not the protesters outside."
It seems the battle lines have been drawn in this standoff playing out on Russia's streets. And neither side seems ready to back down.
CHANCE (On Camera): Well, John, supporters of Alexei Navalny are now calling on President Biden to pressure the Kremlin and to impose tough sanctions on individuals close to Vladimir Putin.
So far U.S. officials have condemned the treatment of the Russian opposition leader and the protesters. But it now won't be until after the court hearing when it's known whether Navalny is going to be freed or kept behind bars, that the U.S. and its allies will be expected to act.
John, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Matthew, thank you. Matthew Chance there in Moscow.
Now to Iran's controversial nuclear program. And Tehran's most senior diplomat says his country is ready for a new relationship with the U.S. but that depends on easing harsh economic sanctions.
Javad Zarif spoke exclusively to CNN's Christiane Amanpour. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, FOREIGN MINISTER, IRAN: Iran does not seek a nuclear weapon. If we wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we could have done it some time ago.
But we decided that nuclear weapons are not -- would not augment our security and are in contradiction to our ideological views and that is why we never pursued nuclear weapons.
But it is true that the time for the United States to come back to the nuclear weapon -- to the nuclear agreement is not unlimited. The United States has a limited window of opportunity because President Biden does not want to portray himself as trying to take advantage of the failed policies of the former Trump Administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Mohammad Javad Zarif was responding to comments from the new U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, who said Iran could be just weeks away from producing enough material for a nuclear weapon.
That's the starkest assessment yet from the Biden team of Iran's alleged nuclear capabilities. It has increasingly breached its obligations under the 2015 deal.
But the Iranian foreign minister says there's a way past the standoff with the U.S. if Europe were to choreograph which actions need to be taken.
Well another reason to get vaccinated. To slow further mutations of the coronavirus.
Health experts say all those eligible for vaccinations should get vaccinated ASAP. We'll tell you more on that in a moment.
And a tight leash in China for the WHO team searching for the origins of the virus more than a year after it emerged.
Details later this hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:15:00]
(100 CLUB)
CNN NARRATOR: This is the 100 Club. Our look at companies that are 100 years old or older.
The beginnings of one of the world's most famous zoos was an unconventional one linked to a major world event; the completion of the Panama Canal.
In 1915, the Panama California Exposition was held in San Diego. RICK SCHWARTZ, AMBASSADOR, SAN DIEGO ZOO GLOBAL: When that exposition was done, a lot of the exhibitors pulled out and left. The animals that were left behind became the very first animals that were part of the San Diego zoo.
NARRATOR: According to the zoo, one sound started it all.
SCHWARTZ: We had a local surgeon here named Dr. Harry Wegeforth. As he was driving back from one of his appointments, so we are told, that he heard some lions roaring.
He turned to his brother who was in the car with him and said well, I think it would be splendid if we started a zoo here in San Diego.
NARRATOR: And in October of 1916, Dr. Wegeforth's dreams were realized.
Today, the company runs an annual budget of more than $300 million.
PAUL BARIBAULT, CEO, SAN DIEGO GLOBAL: We're reaching over a billion people a year in 150 countries with our broadcast material.
We have to be connecting our audience to our commitment to protect wildlife around the globe. For us, that is going to be critical.
VAUSE: With nearly 500 cases of the COVID variants detected in the United States, health experts say it's more urgent than ever for those eligible for vaccinations to do so.
There are concerns that new strains could become dominant and may lead to reinfections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: It is certainly not the dominant strain but if it becomes dominate the experience of our colleagues in South Africa indicate that, even if you've been infected with the original virus, that there is a very high rate of reinfection to the point where previous infection does not seem to protect you against reinfection.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The current available vaccines are less effective against these new variants but they can still prevent serious illness and drive down hospital admissions.
In recent days, the number of Americans hospitalized from COVID has dropped below 100,000, the lowest level in two months.
Still, more people are dying from COVID than at any other point during the pandemic. In January, the virus killed more than 95,000 Americans.
To Washington now and CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner who's also a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University. Dr. Reiner, good to see you.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Nice to see you, John.
VAUSE: In the last few days, health experts from Singapore to Denmark to the U.S. have started talking about two pandemics; the original COVID-19 virus and a pandemic of the new strains of COVID.
And on that, here's the director of the CDC. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, U.S. CDC DIRECTOR: Variants remain a great concern and we continue to detect them in the United States with at least 33 jurisdictions reporting 471 variant cases as of January 31st.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So this is spreading but the original pandemic seems to have peaked. But because these new variants are more contagious and possibly deadlier, some experts believe the second pandemic, if you like, could be around for a lot longer, maybe up to four or five years.
Is that a realistic assessment, how do you see it?
REINER: Well, I think coronavirus is not going to go away, we're not going to eradicate the virus.
I think what we're trying to do is change the nature of this virus into something that we can live with, something more akin to the seasonal flu. And we have the tools to do that.
What we've learned from the vaccine trials is that even if a current vaccine is less effective at preventing COVID-19 illness, particularly with these variants, the vaccines remain spectacularly effective at preventing hospitalization or death.
In fact in the J&J trial which had a heavy presence in South Africa which is where the variant is endemic now, there were no hospitalizations and no deaths.
[01:20:00]
So I think what we need to start thinking about is the coronavirus is going to be around for a long time, it's going to continue to mutate. But, as Tony Fauci said this past weekend, if it doesn't replicate, it can't mutate.
So the important endeavor now is to get vaccine in as many people as possible, mask up, and block the spread of infection. The fewer people infected, the fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate into more troublesome varieties.
VAUSE: There was a very dire prediction over the weekend made by Dr. Michael Osterholm, a White House advisor on the pandemic. Here's what he said. (END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH & POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: The surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks. And if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trenches tells we will, we are going to see something like we have not seen yet in this country.
In advance of this surge, we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And the logic behind that was that essentially put this two- dose regime on hold, get as many people over 65 at least protected with some kind of vaccine because that would be some protection rather than no protection at all. What's the argument against that?
REINER: I think there's really no good argument against that. So in the United States right now, the states on average are administering about 66 percent of the vaccine that they received from the manufacturers through the federal government reserving about a third of the vaccine for second shots.
No state should be doing that. First of all, the states should be trusting the pipeline. We need to get every vaccine that's received by the state into a patient, into a person.
I had a conversation last week with a government vaccine scientist who told me there's no reason to expect that there's any difference in efficacy for these vaccines if the second shot is given at three weeks or four weeks or five weeks or even six weeks.
We need to focus not so much on the second shot but focus on the first shot and that will dramatically increase the amount of vaccine available.
There's some very provocative data that just came online today that suggests that people who've had prior COVID infection may only require one vaccine jab. And the immune response that people who have had prior COVID infection is so robust, it actually exceeds the two-shot regimen.
So perhaps going forward if we understood that a person has antibody- positive prior infection, they may only need one vaccine. So there are a lot of things to learn.
VAUSE: Yes.
REINER: But I completely agree; we need to maximize doses into arms now. We have a window to do this but the window is going to close.
VAUSE: Right. And with that vaccination rollout moving forward at a much slower pace, face masks, it's guaranteed, will be needed for much longer than we expected. REINER: Yes.
VAUSE: You noted on Twitter a short time ago.
"Vaccinated U.S. senators outside the White House this evening wearing medical grade 3M N95 masks. This is a level of protection not available to most Americans. We should change that. Let's make N95 masks accessible to everyone."
So how effective are the current commonly used face masks at preventing the transmission of the new variants? And if most could get access to an N95 or something similar, how much of a difference would make in terms of transmission?
REINER: So I'll answer the last part of the question first. It would make a tremendous amount of difference.
Think about the effectiveness of these masks in term of a gradient. The least protection from sort of a flimsy single-ply piece of cloth escalating to a three-ply surgical mask going up to a KN95 or an N95 medical-grade mask.
If you look at the rates of infection in hospitals now where most employees wear either a three-ply surgical mask or an N95 mask, it is in many places lower, much lower, than the community spread of the virus.
Masks are very, very effective. The more effective mask you wear, the more protected you are.
So my advice to everyone is get the best mask you can find online. Now it can be a little tricky, but if you can find a good quality N95 or KN95 mask online, that's what you should be wearing in public now. Particularly as the new variants become ascendant in the United States.
VAUSE: Good advice to finish on, Dr. Reiner. Thank you so much, we appreciate you being with us.
REINER: My pleasure. Thank you.
VAUSE: Well, in search of the origins of the coronavirus, investigators in Wuhan, China have been to hospitals, the regional disease control center, the seafood market where the first cluster was detected back in 2019. The latest stop is at an animal health facility.
Now on all this, CNN's Steven Jiang is following the story from Beijing. He joins us now live.
Despite what seems to be fairly free access, I guess there are concerns that the team led by the WHO is sort of being kept on a fairly tight leash.
[01:25:00] STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: That's right, John. But you look at their itinerary. This animal disease center you just mentioned -- obviously, indicating these experts are keeping an open mind, they're looking into every possible angle into the origins of the virus.
And this afternoon on Tuesday, they are going to visit a local blood transfusion center.
In the past few days, they have visited some more high-profile locations including the one you mentioned, the now closed seafood market, long suspected to be ground zero of this pandemic. It's been closed for over a year and repeatedly disinfected.
But these experts told CNN being there gave them a better sense of the state of the market in terms of its infrastructure, hygiene, maintenance and flow of goods and people because the shops and equipment are still there. And they were able to talk to locals, workers and public health officials.
So, obviously, they're trying to highlight the more positive, encouraging signs or aspects of their visit so far.
But others, including senior U.S. officials, remain very much critical in terms of Edgeworth how the Beijing government has handled this WHO mission.
You nave the new U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken saying on Sunday that China's falling far short of the mark when it comes to granting access to the experts to the sites they needed to be and this kind of lack of transparency is a profound problem that needs to be addressed. So really illustrating how controversial and sensitive this whole mission has been from day one.
Now that's why these experts insist they are scientists not politicians but it seems just impossible to keep politics entirely out of their agenda when you look at some of their recent stops in Wuhan.
Including, for example, a trip to the exhibition that touts the Communist Party's success in containing this virus in Wuhan and within China, and also to a local cold chain storage facility at a time when the authorities and state media are really drumming up this theory that this virus may have entered Wuhan through imported frozen food. Even though they have very little concrete proof to really support this claim. John.
VAUSE: Steven, thank you. Steven Jiang live for us there in Beijing. Appreciate it.
Well, a Moscow court is set to decide the fate of Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, and Russia's crackdown on protesters and dissidents has world leaders sounding the alarm.
Plus prosecutors escalate their investigation of the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol. Why some rioters are facing much more serious charges.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:29:49]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back everyone.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is due in a Moscow court about 30 minutes from now for a hearing that is likely to send him to prison for up to three and a half years.
The outspoken Kremlin critic is accused of violating a suspended sentence from a 2014 embezzlement case. Navalny says those charges were politically motivated.
He returned to Russia from Germany last month after treatment for poisoning which he blames on the Kremlin.
Navalny's case has sparked some of the biggest anti-government protests Russia has seen in recent years. These are live images right now from Moscow outside that court. You could see that there are a number of people there outside the street and there are riot police -- or police in riot gear as well. A monitoring group says police have arrested more than 5,000 people just this past weekend.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian opposition politician and vice president of the Free Russia Foundation. He is with us this hour from Washington.
Vladimir, thank you for taking the time to speak with us.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, VICE PRESIDENT, FREE RUSSIA FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me, John. It's always good to be back on CNN International.
VAUSE: That's great. From your experience, when you look at these previous mass protests, have they been more about, you know, how the country was being run or poorly run by Putin and his government?
Now, if you look at these new protests, I am wondering if, you know, the demonstrations demanding Navalny's release are really a direct challenge to Putin's legitimacy, to his hold on power. How do you see it?
KARA-MURZA: Yes, it is absolutely. And I think one of the sort of defining features of these particular protest is that they are no longer really opposition protest as those previous demonstrations have been. These are now truly national protests, popular protests against this aging dictator who has been running our country, you know, without free elections, without independent media and without such niceties as the rule of law, and checks and balances and everything that you are used to in democratic countries for more than two decades now.
You know, we have a whole generation of people in Russia who have grown up not seeing any other political reality except Vladimir Putin's. And at the end of the day, it is just simply not ok in a European country, in the 21st century, or anywhere really for one man to stay in power for that long. VAUSE: And these protesters are turning up on the streets despite the
fact they could be facing years in jail. The Kremlin has described them as hooligans, said they were backed by the U.S. as an attempt to destabilize Russia.
So with that in mind, here is the response to that from the new U.S. Secretary of State.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us. It's not. It's about them, it's about the government, it's about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with kleptocracy.
We're reviewing a series of Russian actions that are deeply, deeply disturbing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: There's been a lot of criticism like that from other countries as well, including from E.U. countries. A lot of talk, not much action though, at least not yet. Do you expect that to change?
KARA-MURZA: I do and I certainly hope it will. You know one of the most sort of important aspects of everything that we're talking about is that for so many years western countries, western governments, western leaders have essentially enabled Vladimir Putin's regime by providing safe havens for Putin's cronies and oligarchs to stash away that money that they're looting from the people of Russian in western banks, in Western jurisdictions, in Western financial institutions.
You know, it's been said that the biggest export from Vladimir Putin's regime to the west is not oil, it's not gas, it's corruption. But that of course is a two-way street, and for someone to be able to export corruption someone else somewhere needs to be willing to import it. And we have seen no shortage of western banks and institutions and governments that have lined up to welcome these it might have to welcome these crooks and their dirty money.
And so the most important thing western democracies can do is finally put a stop to this, finally put a stop to this import of corruption, finally put a stop to this enabling, finally put a stop to this complicity by once and for all laying down the red line that those people, those cronies, those oligarchs, those high-ranking human rights abusers who have made a habit of stealing from our people in Russia and then going out and stashing away and spending that money in the West, will no longer be able to do that.
VAUSE: Well, a court ruling on Navalny's fate is imminent. And on that you wrote in "The Washington Post" over the weekend, "There's little doubt he will be sent to prison. And this may be one of the Kremlin's biggest miscalculations. Turning the opposition leader into a martyr and national symbol will only expand his appeal and raises moral clout." What was the alternative here though for the Kremlin, if they didn't act? Wouldn't they look as if they would be weak or that Navalny had won and help place them?
KARA-MURZA: Well, you know, there are no good alternatives, to be honest, for the Kremlin. You know, every dictatorship has its own expiration date and it looks like Vladimir Putin's regime is fast approaching its own.
There are millions of people in Russia who fundamentally reject the authoritarianism and kleptocracy and corruption that have been associated with Vladimir Putin's regime.
Alexei Navalny became sort of the embodiment of this movement, against everything that is wrong with Putin. As you know, one of the immediate triggers for these protests has been, not only the arrest of Alexei Navalny, but also the investigative video that Navalny's team has put out, detailing Vladimir Putin's lavish Italian-style palace on the Russian Black Sea Coast complete with swimming pools, vast skating rinks, oyster farms, wineries and so on with a total price tag of $1.4 billion U.S.
[01:35:01]
KARA-MURZA: This is in a country where 20 million people live below the poverty line, where 23 percent of the population lack access to essential sewage system.
To see such a shameful display of opulence and corruption from the ruling elite, you know, really drives the people nuts.
VAUSE: Yes.
KARA-MURZA: And after 21 years of this, a lot of people around Russia are saying enough is enough.
VAUSE: Very quickly, on the issue of Navalny and one of the other reasons he had such sort of moral clout or authority is because he was poisoned with the agent Novichok. He recovered from that and he has returned as well.
You as an opposition politician, you've been poisoned twice yourself. What is it like? What is that experience for you and for others who've gone through it.
KARA-MURZA: Well, I'm not sure it can be expressed in words. And you know, people who haven't gone through this, well it's really difficult and painful and terrifying when you're unable to breathe, when you're unable to move, when you feel your whole body just give up on you organ by organ by organ.
You know, both times that I was in a coma after poisonings in Moscow in 2015 and again in 2017, doctors told my wife that I had about a 5 percent chance to live.
So I cannot tell you in any words, how grateful and fortunate I feel to be able to even sit here and speak with you. And this is, of course, the favored method, poisoning, going back to Soviet days. The days of the KGB and it's really proliferated under Vladimir Putin.
That of course, is not the only method that they use. You know, at least I had a 5 percent. Alexei Navalny had a few percent chance and thankfully he survived.
In February of 2015 Russian opposition leader, former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was gunned down by five bullets in the back, literally in front of the Kremlin walls in Moscow. This was the most high-profile political assassination in modern history of Russia.
Nemtsov was Putin's most prominent, most effective political opponent and to this day almost six years on, the organizers of that assassination continue to be fully shielded and fully protected by the Russian government, which again, it gives a pretty good illustration of just what Vladimir Putin's regime really represents.
VAUSE: Vladimir, we're out of time, but thank you so much for being with us. We really appreciate it.
KARA-MURZA: Thank you so much, John.
VAUSE: The latest now on the legal fallout after insurgents loyal to Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol last month.
According to a number of sources, authorities are recommending no charges for the police officer who fatally shot one rioter. No final decision has been made. As for the rioters, some are now facing new, more serious charges.
CNN's Brian Todd has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Dramatic video capturing what's believed to be one of the first moments that the U.S. Capitol was breached on January 6th.
At one point, the man in the blue jacket takes the jacket off, puts his "Make America Great Again" cap on backward, seemingly ready to escalate. Moments later, de-escalation occurs. The man with the backwards cap and others pushed over a police barricade. A female officer is down.
The FBI now says she was knocked unconscious and had a concussion. Federal prosecutors have now charged the man in the backwards cap with forcibly assaulting a police officer among other charges. They identify him as Ryan Samsel, on parole from prison in Pennsylvania, wanted in New Jersey for an alleged assault in 2019 according to his criminal federal complaint.
And FBI document says Samsel picked the female officer up off the ground and said quote, "We don't have to hurt you. Why are you standing in our way?" CNN has not heard back from an attorney for Samsel. That same video, posted by a reporter with a conservative Website,
"The Blaze", shows more hand to hand combat between officers and rioters. An officer here throwing punches, desperately trying to hold the crowd back.
GREG EHRIE, VP OF LAW ENFORCEMENT, ANTI DEFAMATION LEAGUE: These people came here with the potential that they were going to commit violence to further this ideology. This was not, in other terms, an escalation that slowly turned up.
TODD: Meantime, more conspiracy charges are being filed against members of far-right extremist groups. Two members of the group, The Proud Boys, are now charged with conspiracy in connection with the January 6th riots.
It's the first case related to the assault to charge members of the Proud Boys of working together to coordinate the attack. But these two defendants are not accused of planning the attack before they came to Washington.
And a new CNN analysis indicates current and former members of the U.S. military are overrepresented among the more than 175 people who have been arrested so far in connection with the assault. Experts say those who could be affiliated with extremist groups could be dangerous.
MICHAEL GERMAN, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Many of the people within these violent white supremacist and far right militant groups were trained by the United States Army, right. That's the kind of training and experience that foreign terrorist groups don't have which (INAUDIBLE).
TODD: Sources tell CNN the FBI's probe into the capitol assault is the bureau's largest investigation since the September 11th attacks.
[01:39:56]
EHRIE: It's taking up a lot of the bureau's resources, which are being redirected from other threats, which is going to be a concern that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies don't have a lot more bandwidth to stretch like this.
TODD (on camera): Meanwhile, law enforcement has not yet publicly named any suspects in the death of Capitol Hill Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Sicknick's body will lie in honor starting Tuesday night in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Lying in state is an honor usually reserved for leaders of government, but several lawmakers had called for that honor to be bestowed on Officer Sicknick.
Brian Todd, CNN -- Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The most senior Republican in congress, Mitch McConnell, has finally spoken out against the conspiracy theory believing, spreader of lies and follower of Qanon Congresswoman from Georgia. McConnell says Marjorie Taylor Greene's loony lies are a cancer for the party.
House Democrats are pushing to remove her from committee assignments. Right now, she sits on the education committee. Before she was elected Greene said the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida was staged to gin up support for gun control legislation.
Her comments have been painful to hear to the families who lost loved ones at that massacre three years ago this month.
Among the victims was Scott Beigel, a beloved geography teacher and cross country coach. His mother spoke to CNN's Brianna Keilar earlier and had this message for the congresswoman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDA BEIGEL SCHULMAN, MOTHER OF TEACHER KILLED IN SCHOOL SHOOTING: She needs to come forward. She needs to tell the world publicly that she does not believe that those shootings were false flags and staged events. She needs to come forward and she can make up any story or give any reason that she said those things. But the most important is that she disavow those statements.
You know, Brianna, I was thinking about it and analogies are something that Scott and I always used to go back and forth about. And you know, lies and conspiracy theories are like a virus that are -- you know, that infects a host. And I guess you could say that our country is kind of like the host that's been infected.
You know what, I do say to Marjorie Taylor Greene, please, you know what, find your conscience. You are a mother, man up or woman up, whatever you want to say. and tell the truth. Tell everybody what you told me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Countries in Europe continue to wrestle with how and when to lift coronavirus restrictions. Denmark announced Monday, it's reopening schools for its youngest children those in preschool up to 4th grade.
Most of Italy is also loosening COVID measures. All but five of its 20 regions reasons are now at the lowest restrictions. Museums are allowed to partially reopen, restaurants can serve dine-in customers until 6:00 p.m.
[01:44:56]
VAUSE: The U.K. meantime, preparing for a surge in testing in parts of England where the South African variant has been detected.
And European law enforcement agency Europol is warning local police, criminals are selling forged COVID negative test results. A number of cases have been identified. They're being bought and sold online.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Angela Merkel says 73 million Germans will have access to a vaccine by September. That's after major vaccine makers announced the Eu will receive more doses than previously stated.
CNN's Melissa Bell has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Angela Merkel has said that every German would have access to a vaccine by September of 2021 -- an ambitious target when you consider the slow rollout of vaccination programs across the E.U. so far.
It came just after a meeting between Angela Merkel and big pharma representatives just a day after the president of the European Commission, Ursula Van Der Leyen had also spoken to big pharma representatives after which it was announced that both AstraZeneca and BioNTech would be providing more doses than had been planned to the European Union.
This as the vaccination campaigns in several European countries have now either slowed or ground to a halt in some parts.
COVID-19 figures remain in some countries, still high and there is increasing pressure for European governments to try and speed up the process of getting vaccination to their populations.
In France. the government has said that the next few days will be crucial in terms of COVID-19 figures. In order to work out whether a third partial lockdown might not be necessary.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Growing doubts over homegrown COVID vaccine in India could hamper plans to vaccinate 300 million people in the coming months. India's rollout began just over two weeks ago. Critics though are skeptical of Covaxin, which the government released without any data on its effectiveness.
CNN's Vedika Sud, is in New Delhi with more details on this. And I guess no surprise, people are skeptical.
VEDIKA SUD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you john. yes of course because you see that when the drug regulators IN India did go ahead and authorized the emergency use of two vaccines, one being the Covishield, locally known as Covishield which is the Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine and the other being the homegrown Bharat Biotech vaccine, which is known as Covaxin. At that point in time, Covaxin did not have any efficacy data to show publicly to the people as well as medical experts that the clinical trial, the third phase of it is still on.
And that is the reason why you have health care workers across India who are still reluctant to take the shot.
Now I have spoken to quite a few of them and they say that they'd rather wait this out or take the Covishield instead. But still Covaxin is being disputed across India and will also be distributed to some countries abroad.
So that is the big controversy right now. But despite that there are a lot of people who have been vaccinated, over then million people have already been vaccinated. We talk about healthcare workers, and then frontline workers who are going to be prioritized after which we'll get to phase 2.
Of course we've also spoken to some people in villages in India. CNN actually traveled to a village to ask people living in rural areas. This is about 65 percent of India's population living there. Whether they knew about this massive rollout of the vaccine, but they were unaware.
So yes there are roadblocks and challenges that India is facing currently.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUD (voice over): It's one of the world's biggest vaccination drives aiming to inoculate its population of over 1.3 billion people, almost four times the population of the U.S.
NARENDRA MODI, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): In such a short time, not one but two made in India vaccines were launched.
SUD: But controversy over a government backed homegrown vaccine persists. India's drug regulator authorized Covaxin before the completion of phase 3 clinical trials.
Medical experts have urged the government to relieve the vaccine's efficacy data which is not being public yet.
And now some health care workers in India are hesitant to take the shot.
NUPUR ABROL, HEALTH CARE WORKER: I would have chosen the vaccine which is supported by the data, I would have taken COVISHIELD or Pfizer or any other vaccine which had phase 3 clinical trial data. I obviously would have gone for that.
SUD: India's health ministry, its drug regulator and the manufacturer pharma company Bharat Biotech, all say the vaccine is safe and generates adequate immune response.
India is also banking heavily on a mobile app CoWin to manage its vaccine program. Initially the country's electoral data will be fed into this digital platform according to Indian government officials, who say the app will help identify target groups, track vaccine beneficiaries and vaccine stocks. In some cities, CoWin has faced technical glitches.
[01:49:53]
SUD: Millions of vaccine vials are being distributed by air and land across India. Picked up from stores where they're kept in bulk, then moved to remote towns and villages in insulated bags.
In the first two weeks of its ambitious drive, over 3.3 million healthy workers have been vaccinated. Nurse Prabhjot Sharma is one of them.
NURSE: I'm happy and excited. The wait is over, this is a big moment for everyone.
SUD: About 2.5 thousand kilometers south of New Delhi, at least 10 residents of this village had no knowledge of India's vaccine rollout. Over 65 percent of the country's population, live in rural India.
52 year old Alahuddin (ph), resident of the village told CNN that no government official had informed him or his family about India's vaccine rollout. While several countries have been running out of vaccine doses, India, often called the vaccine hub of the world is not only inoculating it's people but has also gifted over 5.5 million vaccine doses to neighboring nations, according to government figures.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SUD (voice over): Commercial exports are also taking place as we speak John, but what also is worth noting and is good news from here in India is that for the first time in eight months on Monday, India recorded its lowest single day rise in infections as well as fatalities.
So that's good news coming out of India because of which you also have the health ministry also relaxes some restrictions around India including Full Occupancy now is being allowed in movie houses, more people being allowed to gather in places as well as swimming pools being open to public. So we're just hoping here in India that things remain under control because remember in September -- mid-September, we were talking about at least close to 100,000 people being infected on a daily basis, John.
VAUSE: They're incredibly huge numbers for a country with an incredibly huge population. Vedika, thank you. Vedika Sud in New Delhi.
South Africa has received its first shipment of a vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca. On Monday President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed the arrival of a million doses saying they could turn the tide against the pandemic, which has infected more than a million people in South Africa.
Vaccinations are expected to begin within two weeks. Health care workers will be the first in line.
Well Tokyo's state of emergency for COVID could be extended another month. So what does this mean for the upcoming Olympics? A live report form Tokyo after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Well, even with the COVID infection rate falling, officials in Japan are expected to extend the state of emergency in Tokyo and nine other regions. They say extreme caution is needed with the Olympic games just months away.
CNN's Blake Essig is live in Tokyo with more on this. I guess, you know, I guess there could never be in abundance of caution and can't be too cautious here but what impact will this all have leading up to the games?
BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, caution is key when it comes to, you know, trying to get the coronavirus under control, so that there is a possibility that the Olympics can actually take place in less than six months.
[01:54:41]
ESSIG: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK is expected to announce an extension to the current state of emergency order to 10 out of 11 prefectures currently under the state of emergency order through March 7th. That's expected to be announced in less than four hours during his scheduled press conference.
Now of course, Tokyo is one of those prefectures that will remain under the state of emergency until march 7th. That's just 18 days before the torch relay is set to begin here in Japan.
Now, when you talk to Olympic -- you know, the Olympic committee here in Japan they have reiterated the fact that they are moving forward with holding these games as scheduled. No Plan B, vaccines are not a prerequisite to hold for athletes to compete in these games.
But one thing that they are about to roll out is a playbook that kind of gives us an idea of what rules will be put in place in order in order to provide a safe experience for not only the athletes, but coaches and the Japanese public.
Assuming that these games are able to take place, IOC vice president John Coates recently spoke with a CNN affiliate Sky News Australia, just a couple days ago and talked about what we could see in that playbook.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN COATES, IOC VICE PRESIDENT: They must undertake testing, saliva and nose and within 72 hours of traveling to Tokyo. IN fact, we've now introduced from Australia for people coming here.
They'll be tested on arrival. Then will now be tested, they're going to continue doing negative every four days.
(END VIDEO CLIP) ESSIG: Coats also went on to say that the athletes movement will be limited, they're only going to be able to essentially be at the Athletes Village. Transported to and from the venue where they'll be training and competing, that's a place it'll only be able to go.
And they're only allowed to show up five days before their event and then they're going to be expected to leave two days after the event has completed.
And again that's the idea and the goal of hoping to limit the number of athletes in the village -- the athlete's village at any other given time.
Again you know, John, of course, all of this, you know, begs the question of whether not athletes will be able -- or excuse me -- international spectators and local spectators will be allowed to be in attendance during the games. That decision is expected to be made at some point end of March or April.
VAUSE: Thank you for the no fun games COVID-19. Blake Essig in Tokyo live for us. We appreciate the update. Thank you.
And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow is up after the break.
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