Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Vaccinations Ramping Up as New Cases Decline; TSA Announces New Fines for Mask Violators; Front Line COVID-19 Workers Facing Psychological Impacts; U.S. Democratic Lawmakers Set Stage to Pass COVID-19 Bill; Chinese Diplomat Takes Hard Line in Call to Secretary Blinken; Thousands March in Yangon against Military Junta; Fight over Methane Heats Up between Biden and Texas. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired February 06, 2021 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi and welcome to our viewers here, in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me, I am Robyn Curnow. You are watching CNN.
So, coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am not cutting the size of the checks. They're going to be $1,400, period. That's what the American people were promised.
CURNOW (voice-over): He's not budging. President Biden is pushing for a big COVID-relief plan, with or without Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW (voice-over): Also, coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. are finally down, since the peak. This, while more Americans are getting vaccinated.
Plus, we will hear from a doctor on the COVID front lines in the U.K.'s National Health Service. How she and her colleagues are coping.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: So, the U.S. is seeing some success in the fight against the coronavirus, even as health experts raise the alarm about variants spreading more easily. This is the situation right now. The U.S. is getting closer to 27 million total coronavirus cases. And almost 460,000 Americans have now died from the virus since the pandemic began.
But more and more Americans are getting vaccinated, over a million just in the past week. And for families of seniors, such as this woman, getting vaccinated in California, it means not only relief from the fear but hope that a better future is coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just excited that she is able to get the vaccine. First and foremost, it's her safety. So knowing that she's got the vaccine. We're -- we're looking forward to being able to spend more time with her. It's been tough trying to keep our distance. But with the vaccine, once we are all vaccinated, we can spend more time together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: And the country is making progress. The numbers of new infections and hospitalizations are dipping now following that holiday-related surge.
Now the White House says it plans to help step up the number of vaccine doses available, even more, by invoking a law from the days of the Korean War, as Erica Hill now explains -- Erica.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More Pfizer vaccine could be coming soon with some help from the Defense Production Act.
TIM MANNING, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 SUPPOSEDLY COORDINATOR: We told you that when we heard of a bottleneck on equipment, supplies from technology related to vaccine supply, we would step in and help.
HILL (voice-over): And a third vaccine now in line for FDA emergency use authorization.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: I'm really excited about the J&J vaccine.
HILL (voice-over): The FDA will consider Johnson & Johnson's single dose vaccine on February 26th.
JHA: Certainly, by April it will become a real player in the terms of expanding vaccine access.
HILL (voice-over): More mass vaccination sites coming online today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as I heard about it on the news, I signed up right away.
HILL (voice-over): Yankee Stadium offering 15,000 appointments in the first week.
AARON BOONE, MANAGER, NEW YORK YANKEES: Today is as special an opening day as the Yankee Stadium has ever seen.
HILL (voice-over): Megasites also opening in San Francisco and Maryland. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell telling President Biden every team stadium will be available as a mass vaccination site.
KATHERINE GILMORE, PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: How we prioritize communities of color with a continued vaccine distribution rollout will be vitally important to ensuring that we can close that inequitable gap.
HILL (voice-over): Teachers and some school staff now eligible for the vaccine in 24 states and D.C. The CDC working on new guidance after prompting confusion earlier this week
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: There are increasing data to suggest schools can safely reopen and that that safe reopening does not suggest teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Dr. Walensky spoke to this in her personal capacity. Obviously she is the head of the CDC. But we're going to wait for the final guidance to come out.
HILL (voice-over): Nationwide more than 9 million shots administered last week, that's 10 times the number of new cases added in the U.S., two very different metrics marking important gains.
DR. PAUL OFFIT, U.S. FDA VACCINE ADVISER: I think overall things are definitely getting better. And I really do think that we will get on top of this by the summer or late summer because I think everything is now moving in the right direction.
HILL (voice-over): New cases dropping 61 percent in the last month. COVID hospitalizations falling below 90,000 for the first time since November. More states loosening restrictions, increasing indoor dining capacity. North Dakota dropping its mask mandate. Wisconsin's governor fighting his state legislature to keep one in place.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to keep putting people first. We are going to keep listening to the science.
[04:05:00]
HILL (voice-over): The TSA announcing a new fine for travelers who refuse to mask up as experts caution these proven efforts are still needed to keep fast spreading variants at bay.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Viruses will not evolve and mutate if you do not give them an open playing field.
HILL (voice-over): In New York, I'm Erica Hill, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Also, we are seeing encouraging findings from Oxford University and AstraZeneca. A new study suggests their vaccine is highly effective against the more transmissible variant, first found in the U.K.
Now while the study has yet to be peer reviewed, researchers say the vaccine offers similar levels of protection against the variant, as it does to earlier strains of the virus.
Meantime, several European leaders are calling on the E.U. Commission to safeguard their supply of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. They want Brussels to address potential issues with the doses being shipped to the U.S. first. So let's talk about all of this with Salma Abdelaziz. Salma joins us now from London.
Hi, Salma, what can you tell us?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: Hello, Robyn, so signs of progress, positive signs, this announcement by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, if true, that's huge news because, of course, this variant that's prevalent here in the U.K., it's up to 70 percent more transmissible. It could be more deadly, according to British authorities.
It's been spreading through -- through Europe and spreading through the United States. So for all those worried watchers, there is a positive sign there, that there could be some protection against this variant.
And also, there are signs of progress here. The key indicators are better. That crucial R number, the reproduction number, is down. Scientific advisers here say they do believe the epidemic is shrinking, hospitalization rates are down.
But all of this, Robyn, of course, begs the question, when does lockdown get lifted?
When do restrictions get eased up?
Prime minister Boris Johnson taking to Twitter yesterday and saying, not anytime soon. You still have to follow restrictions. We are not out of the woods yet. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: I want to stress that it is still early days. And we have, in rates of infection, in this country, still, very, very high. And more people, almost twice as many people, in our hospitals with COVID now, than there were back at the -- the peak in April.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABDELAZIZ: So what happens next?
Well, the prime minister has promised, on February 15th or February 22nd, rather, we are going to get an update, a road map, out of lockdown with one of the key issues being reopening the schools.
And in order for that to happen, in order for these restrictions to be eased, you have to get that vaccination program into people's arms, as many people as possible. So far, key vulnerable groups are being vaccinated. You have almost 11 million people who have received their first dose.
The over 50s have been told you should be getting your vaccination in May. So, moving very quickly here but, again, that vaccine program, that's the only protection against the variant -- Robyn.
CURNOW: Thanks for that update there, live in London, Salma.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Joining me now is Dr. Rachel Clarke. She is a palliative care specialist and author. Her latest book, "Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a Time of Pandemic," captures what life was like inside the U.K.'s National Health Service during that first wave of the pandemic.
Doctor, hi. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me. So -- so when you wrote this book, I mean, the first wave, certainly, feels like a very long time ago for all of us.
Did you have any, real concept of -- of how this pandemic would play out, the world that we live in now, when you were writing that first -- about that first wave?
DR. RACHEL CLARKE, PALLIATIVE CARE SPECIALIST AND AUTHOR: Not even slightly. It was shattering, a year ago, in the U.K. We were going through what you experienced in -- in New York City. Our health service, completely, overwhelmed.
And patients dying in -- on a scale and at a swiftness that none of us had ever witnessed, before, in the National Health Service. It was absolutely devastating.
And the only thing that kept you going was -- was sort of the -- the -- the belief you clung onto, that, one day, this would be over.
And if anyone had said to us, a year down the line, your health service will be more overwhelmed, the deaths will have reached a peak no one ever imagined, I think, we would have curled up in balls of misery, really. And yet, here we are, again.
CURNOW: And, again, you know, the prospect of months and months ahead of you.
How are doctors and nurses doing?
CLARKE: Well, the --
(CROSSTALK)
CURNOW: Haven't curled up in a ball, just yet?
CLARKE: Not quite, although, the tragedy, this time around, is that this awful second wave wasn't inevitable. It didn't have to happen. And I think a huge number of us, doctors and nurses, feel as though, inexplicably, our government made the same mistakes, second time around.
We locked down too late. In the run-up to Christmas, we were just desperate for lockdown to be put in place.
[04:10:00]
CLARKE: It didn't happen. And so, a quarter of all our deaths in the United Kingdom, over 25,000 people have died in 2021. So, in the last four or five weeks. And that's devastating.
Staff -- many of us are suffering from post-traumatic stress symptoms, anxiety, depression. I -- I talk to colleagues, who, sometimes, tell me they are feeling suicidal. And that's, I think, because everybody is so burnt out and shattered by the first wave.
But now, we are going through it all over, again. And it is -- it -- it's just really tough on health care professionals just now.
CURNOW: It certainly is. And, also, you mentioned the devastating toll in human lives. I mean, nearly half a million people will have died here in the U.S. in the coming weeks. Where you are, as well, you talk about these massive numbers of people.
How do we begin?
How do you begin to sort of process this collective pain, the -- the magnitude of these losses?
I mean, I read out the numbers, day after day. And it -- it doesn't quite -- you can't quite fathom how many people are being lost around the world. It's horrifying.
CLARKE: It -- it really is. And our -- our -- our death toll, now, is over 100,000. So it's on a par with America.
And I think, when you're a doctor and you are seeing these human beings, right up close, and you, literally, are seeing COVID-19 suffocate the life out of your patients, you know that every single one of those people is a -- is a loved and cherished human being.
And they are leaving behind grieving mothers, fathers, spouses, children. And it is absolutely heartbreaking.
But I think, I try to hold onto my sanity, in a way, by -- by saying to myself, every single one of those human beings, we, in the health service, are doing all we can to ensure that, right up until the end, right up until that final breath, we are treating them with care and love and compassion.
And nobody in my hospital, we won't let anybody die alone. We will do everything we possibly can to make sure that a nurse or a doctor or somebody sits with the patient and holds their hand and talks to them and sometimes reads out letters from their loved ones who can't come into the hospital. So, they know they're not alone.
And that's what I hold on to. That is what tells me that, despite all of this, people are good. And we get through this, together. It's the only way to get through a pandemic, by holding onto our humanity and never letting those unimaginable numbers of -- of lost souls be statistics. They're human beings.
CURNOW: You -- you work in end-of-life care.
How difficult, different is it to be alone, away from your family?
Just everybody, these numbers, these people, these lost souls, have not been able to say goodbye in the way many of us would have liked to have.
How different is that for the families and for those who go?
CLARKE: So, I think, for me, that is the -- overwhelmingly, it's the greatest cruelty of this disease. If you imagine what it's like from the perspective of a patient, who dies in hospital from this virus, from the moment they arrive inside the hospital, they literally never see a human face again.
Every single person who looms over their bed is wearing a mask. They see pairs of eyes, behind visors, plastic. Everybody is gowned. Everybody looks like an alien. And that is, absolutely, desperate, what a situation.
And the tragedy is we always try, if we think someone is close to the end of life, we try to bring in a family member. But sometimes things happen too quickly. And we have to rely on screens, on video calls, on messages that we read at the bedside.
And all you can do in that situation is try to be a proxy for the family who aren't there. So, I think, at the end of the day, what I've learned more than anything from this horrific year is that humanity is humanity is humanity. And I can never replace a spouse or a loved one, a family member.
But if I'm there and if I am talking to somebody and soothing them and holding their hand and playing their favorite piece of music, then I'm giving something that is worth more than morphine at the bedside. You need to feel as though you're not alone.
[04:15:00]
CLARKE: And I think, in the National Health Service -- and I'm sure, in hospitals all around the world -- that's what we try so hard to do.
CURNOW: Your words are beautiful. They're comforting. I think, to many of us listening to you, knowing that people are there, having you -- having you and nurses and doctors like you there.
But how angry do you feel?
How frustrated do you feel at vaccine denialists and folks, who go around not wearing masks, particularly, after one day at work, where you have to go through this?
CLARKE: Yes. Sometimes -- sometimes, I'll come home, and I'll have spent 13 hours in the hospital. And I'll go onto social media and I'll literally be abused by random members of the public for having the temerity, as an NHS doctor, to say that COVID is real and serious and deadly.
I have had death threats and rape threats for saying that our hospitals are full. And so have all of my colleagues. We have COVID deniers, who deny our lived experience at work and say, hospitals are empty, this is a scam-demic. You are despicable, you are disgusting, you are a child abuser, you're Hitler.
Those are literally terms of abuse that I have received. And I am incandescent with rage at those individuals because they are deliberately sowing mistrust amongst a very vulnerable, very frightened population and inviting and encouraging them not to wear a mask and so on.
And I am also incandescent with rage at yet our government, who could have locked down earlier, who could have prevented tens of thousands of lives lost to this virus, if only they had had the strength to do the right thing, instead of pandering to what was popular.
But they didn't do that. They ignored the best scientific advice and, to my mind, that's the very definition of a tragedy.
CURNOW: Dr. Rachel Clarke, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your expertise. Thank you for everything you are doing every day. Thank you for your book as well. And I wish you strength. Thank you, Doctor.
CLARKE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: So, Washington will soon be consumed by this unprecedented second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The former president won't be there to defend himself. But Democrats say they really don't need his testimony, anyway. That story is just ahead.
Also, President Biden admits Republicans probably won't sign onto his COVID-19 relief proposal. And he's OK with that. We'll explain what comes next, after a short break.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:20:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CURNOW: Welcome back.
So, the Democrat controlled U.S. Congress is moving quickly on two fronts. One is an enormous $1.9 trillion stimulus package. It's on track for passage within the next few weeks.
But before that happens, there is the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. It's expected to begin on Tuesday although, there is not, yet, a clear timeline of how long it might last.
President Joe Biden says he thinks the trial needs to take place. But in an interview with CBS, he declined to say if he would vote to convict if he was still in the U.S. Senate. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS HOST: Let's turn to the impeachment trial, President Trump's impeachment trial.
If you were still a senator, would you vote to convict him?
BIDEN: Look. I ran like hell to defeat him because I thought he was unfit to be president. I watched what everybody else watched, what happened when that -- that crew invaded the United States Congress. But I'm not in the Senate now. I'll let the Senate make that decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Mr. Trump has refused to testify at the trial in his own defense. But Democrats, who will prosecute, say the case -- believe there is plenty of evidence, already, of his alleged role in inciting a mob to attack the Capitol on January the 6th.
President Biden, meanwhile, remains focused in getting stimulus checks to Americans, who are struggling, economically, due to this pandemic. Kaitlan Collins has the details on that -- Kaitlan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BIDEN: Like they are just not willing to go as far as I think we have to go.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden making clear tonight in his strongest terms yet that he will not wait for Republicans to pass the pandemic relief bill.
BIDEN: What Republicans have proposed is either to do nothing or not enough.
COLLINS (voice-over): Days after sitting down with Senate Republicans in the Oval Office, Biden said he will not delay the bill in hopes of getting some of them on board.
BIDEN: If I had to choose between getting help right now to Americans who are hurting so badly, and getting bogged down in a monthly negotiation, that's an easy choice. I'm going to help the American people who are hurting now.
COLLINS (voice-over): Biden said he was willing to limit which Americans would qualify for stimulus checks in order to appease moderates from both parties. But he says there is one thing he is not willing to budge on.
BIDEN: I'm not cutting the size of the checks. They're going to be $1,400, period. That is what the American people were promised. COLLINS (voice-over): However, it's not clear which Americans will
qualify for how much.
PSAKI: There's an ongoing discussion about it. And it is an active discussion. The decision has -- a final conclusion has not been made.
COLLINS (voice-over): After a Labor Department report said the U.S. added only 49,000 jobs in January with just 6,000 of them being in the private sector, Biden pushed for Congress to vote quickly.
BIDEN: These are not Democrats or Republicans. They're Americans and they are suffering.
COLLINS (voice-over): After a meeting in the Oval Office, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set a two-week timeline for getting the bill through the House and into the Senate's hands.
QUESTION: Can you guarantee that this will be done by March 15th?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Absolutely. Without any question. Before then.
COLLINS (voice-over): Before dawn on Friday, the Senate took another step toward getting the bill passed as Vice President Kamala Harris cast her first tiebreaking vote amid a slim Democratic majority.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The vice president votes in the affirmative.
[04:25:00]
COLLINS (voice-over): Republicans have said Biden's proposal is far too large. But so have some Democrats, including Barack Obama's former economic adviser, Larry Summers, who warned in an op-ed in "The Washington Post" that Biden was at risk of going too big, an assertion Biden's aides quickly rejected.
JARED BERNSTEIN, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Where Larry got something importantly wrong, by the way, is by suggesting that the administration was being dismissive of any inflation, potential inflationary pressures. That is flat out wrong.
COLLINS: And Biden left the White House, on Friday, for his first flight on Air Force One. Going to Delaware for the weekend where he is going to spend it with the first lady and watch the Super Bowl.
But before he did, he sat down for an interview with CBS News, where he made a series of headlines, including that he does not believe that $15 minimum wage that he has gone after and promised on the campaign trail is going to survive this coronavirus proposal. It's already facing headwinds in the Senate.
He said here he believes, because the reconciliation rules, it's not going to make it. And the other headline was that he was asked if former president Trump should still get access to those intelligence briefings that former presidents often enjoy when they are out of office.
And he said no. He said the reason he did not think he should receive those briefings is because of Trump's erratic behavior. And he said that the biggest condition -- there is no benefit but the biggest concern would be that former president Trump would slip up and say something that he had learned in one of those briefings -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Well, Leslie Vinjamuri is head of the U.S. and Americas Programme at Chatham House in London.
Leslie, hi, lovely to see you. So President Biden is defending his stimulus plan.
How much is riding on this?
LESLIE VINJAMURI, CHATHAM HOUSE: A lot. As we know, the American economy is suffering. Jobs are not coming back at nearly the rate that they need to. A lot of people aren't able to pay their bills. And, of course, unemployment is -- a lot of these benefits are due to expire in mid-March. So there is a real sense of urgency.
And I think that, you know, despite the debate on the partisanship that is continuing, it's certainly not new. I think that President Biden has taken the decision that there is not time to wait and that the economic costs of delaying are, simply, too high, in this case.
CURNOW: Obviously, this is a huge focus, domestically. But he's, also, got some foreign policy that he wants to deal with. The president and secretary of state declaring, this week, that America is back, touting the administration's foreign policy priorities.
They took, firstly, aim at the Saudis, cutting off weapons sales, intelligence and this sort of cozy nature of the relationship between the Saudis and the Trump administration.
So what do you think is going to be the immediate impact of this?
VINJAMURI: Well, I think that, you know, it has been on the cards. There's been a lot of pushback during the Trump administration. Remember, that -- that -- that support of Saudi in the war in Yemen precedes Donald Trump, even it continued. And there's been just extraordinary, humanitarian catastrophe.
I think to his credit, President Biden and his team have said they would review the entire Saudi relationship and they would really cut off the support that's being used to prosecute that war.
But remember, what we saw in that speech was very interesting because we are getting very clear, very consistent, very tough messaging but both, with respect to Saudi and Russia, what President Biden is saying is we will work with you on certain things. New START has been extended, between the United States and Russia, the New START treaty.
But we will be very tough on others. So, it's -- it's a twin track. But it really was, you know, a very strong, as expected, speech that really didn't throw up any surprises. And, you know, it -- it -- the big surprise, the big change, I guess, is that, you know, the last four years have been marked, crowded, with inconsistency, lack of clarity.
And that -- that's -- that's really the number one change. And, of course, on concrete things, Russia policy, Saudi, we are going to see very significant changes from the president.
CURNOW: And also, let's talk about China because, in many ways, Chinese American competition will define the next decade or even beyond. There is no honeymoon period there.
We have got a readout and some -- some details of the pretty tough call between the two foreign policy heads of China and -- and -- and America. What -- one -- one foreign-policy expert I've read has said that the administration's overtures to NATO, to European and Asian allies, is less about building alliances but more, also, about building alliances against China.
How much does America need allies, not for the sake of it, for a post- liberal world order, but actually to manage a competitive rise in China?
VINJAMURI: I think, the big question -- first of all, it's very important. Right?
Especially, when it comes to questions of economic negotiations, working, especially, with Europe, right?
[04:30:00]
VINJAMURI: The ability of the Biden administration to really form a coherent approach with Europe, whether it's using sanctions on questions of human rights, whether it's negotiating on foreign direct investment screening, on export controls, on 5G technology, on all the big economic questions, really getting on board with Europe will be absolutely critical.
Otherwise, China can simply turn and peel off one of America's allies against it and any -- any negotiation just becomes much less effective. So that really is the Biden team's approach, is to really try to work, very consistently.
But it's going to be tough, right?
Europe is -- has already demonstrated it's moved forward with that investment treaty with China. Not clear that it will, necessarily, pass in Europe. But it signaled to America that it's not simply going to lay over and play ball. But I think that the Europeans will talk with -- with the Americans.
But what will come of that? We don't know. It is -- it is central, however, to the strategy.
CURNOW: Yes. Many ways, that, also, somebody -- I think somebody said that the Biden-China policy is going to be the Biden-ally policy, which, I thought, was interesting. Quickly, before we go. Big week, ahead, with impeachment.
How much does this president need impeachment, politically?
Or perhaps, not, will it be a distraction?
VINJAMURI: It's going to be a distraction. There is no doubt about it. The Republican Party is going to be a distraction because it's at war with itself and a lot will play out through the impeachment.
The impeachment is vital for America's reckoning with its own democracy, with an insurrection that was possibly a coup and for signaling to the rest of the world that you don't just ignore something like what we saw on January 6th at the Capitol.
CURNOW: Leslie Vinjamuri, always good to speak to you, get your analysis, live, there in London. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: So protesters have been out in the streets of Myanmar's largest city, days after the military coup there that ousted their democratically elected leaders. We will have the latest on the tense situation there. That's next.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:35:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CURNOW: Welcome back to our viewers here, in the United States and all around the world. It's 35 minutes past the hour. I'm Robyn Curnow. Thanks for joining me.
So thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators have been marching in Myanmar's biggest city.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW (voice-over): They're voicing their opposition to the military coup earlier this week. We are hearing that a second demonstration is now underway in Yangon, after the first one dispersed.
Meantime, the nation's data network has been shut down and a lawyer for civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the country's ousted president says he's not had access to either one.
Well, Ivan Watson is monitoring these events from Hong Kong. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Hi, Ivan.
What do you make of the scenes that have been playing out on the streets, today?
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, the coup, on Monday, took the international community and certainly, Myanmar, by surprise, even though there had been rumors that it could happen and speculation leading up to it.
And it's taken a number of days for people to process this. And now, we are -- we've been seeing signs of protest, people banging pots and pans, at night, for example, in Yangon; scattered protests of doctors or students in different cities.
And today, in the commercial capital, we are starting to see these demonstrations popping up, merging or one kind of winding down and another one popping up with a significant riot police presence, nearby, in some places, blocking, physically blocking, demonstrators from marching down the road.
But no signs of altercations, thus far. The organization of these protests is being hampered, Robyn, by a crackdown on internet right now in Myanmar. We've heard from one mobile phone provider there, the company, Tele-nor, saying they received an order that went out to all mobile phone providers in the country, today, from the ministry of communications, ordering them to shut down all data transmission.
So that you now have voice calls and SMS. But people I have talked to in Yangon, for example, say they haven't had any internet on their phone since 10:00 or 12:00 in the morning. And they are saying that this is making it harder for people to communicate amongst themselves and certainly, harder to get images and information out to the outside world.
That said, I'm, also, hearing that young people are kind of communicating by phone now. And that is helping mobilize people to just come out and -- and join in the streets -- Robyn.
CURNOW: And how resilient is the military to these protests?
How widespread are they?
How deep are they?
How big are they?
And -- and how do you see the military responding here?
WATSON: Well, of course, the military has a long history of ruling Myanmar throughout the 20th century with very draconian governance and absolutely no tolerance of -- of dissent.
That started to loosen up, over the course of the last 10 years. And over the last five years, in a power-sharing agreement with the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which is, largely, under -- in jail, right now, under house arrest, since Monday's coup.
In decades past, the military ignored international criticism and sanctions. And Myanmar was one of the most isolated countries in the world.
We're already starting to see signs of governments calling for sanctions. That's something that's been echoed by the Biden administration just this week. And we're seeing signs of some of the foreign companies that surged into Myanmar over its kind of opening up over the last decade that are deeply uncomfortable with this.
Tele-nor saying that it has to follow with the edicts coming from the ministry of communication to shut down communications. But at the same time, in its press release, is saying it's not happy with this, that it is doing this because it's worried about the safety of its employees on the ground.
Another example, coming from the Japanese brewery, Kirin, which announced, this week, it was ending its joint partnership with a huge Myanmar corporation that is closely tied to the Myanmar military. And that's a company that invested more than $0.5 billion to -- to buy up stakes in -- in Myanmar's largest brewery five years ago.
[04:40:00]
WATSON: We could potentially see more of this to come. But again, this is a military that didn't mind being isolated and being viewed as, basically, a pariah for decades prior to this.
CURNOW: OK. Thanks for that update there, Ivan Watson. Continue to monitor things and come back to us if there are any new developments. Thanks so much. Ivan Watson there.
So coming up next, an invisible threat to the environment and our health. How the White House is tackling it with some surprising help.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
CURNOW: You can't see it, you can't smell it and it is a danger to us all, as Bill Weir now explains -- Bill.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep in the heart of Texas, in an oil field the size of Kansas, a little team is trying to solve a big problem -- by showing the world an invisible threat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where there's dark red regions, that's where we found really, really high levels of methane. WEIR: Yes, they are methane hunters, in search of that planet- cooking, climate-changing pollution better known as natural gas. You can't see it or smell it, unless you have infrared eyes and a laser spectroscope nose.
MACKENZIE SMITH, SENIOR SCIENTIST, SCIENTIFIC AVIATION: Someone must have just walked by the inlet and breathed.
WEIR: Is that right? It's that sensitive?
SMITH: Yes.
WEIR: It can pick up your breath?
SMITH: Oh, absolutely.
WEIR: Really?
SMITH: Yes.
WEIR: This is carbon dioxide down here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WEIR: And this is methane.
And in the Permian basin, you don't have to fly far to find it.
PAOLO WILCZAK, RESEARCH PILOT, SCIENTIFIC AVIATION: They see it's gone up there.
WEIR: Yes. Looks like you called it. So, we're downwind of the facility.
WILCZAK: Yes. That's most likely coming from that site.
KELSEY ROBINSON, PROGRAM MANAGER, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND, PERMIANMAP: So, what we found in the Permian Basin is that operators are wasting enough gas to heat about 2 million homes a year.
[04:45:00]
WEIR (voice-over): Sometimes it leaks from old equipment or orphaned wells. And sometimes when there's no one to buy it, they just burn it in a practice known as flaring.
ROBINSON: In fact, we found the Permian basin is emitting more than double in the other oil and gas region in the United States.
WEIR: Scientists agree that if Joe Biden is going to succeed in meeting the promise of the Paris Accord, fixing this is an urgent must. So one of his first executive orders began to roll back Donald Trump's free pass to methane leakers, but the very next week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order of his own.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): I'm in Midland to make clear that Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington, D.C.
WEIR: He ordered every state agency to bring him every reason to sue the Biden administration and seemed eager to start an energy civil war, calling out San Francisco for the recent ban of natural gas in new construction.
ABBOTT: In Texas, we will not let cities use political correctness to dictate what energy source you use.
MIKE SOMMERS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE: We think the threat of climate change is very real.
WEIR: Much less hostile is big oil's biggest lobbyist.
SOMMERS: We support both industry actions and the actions by the federal government in the United States and around the globe to address this very important issue that we know is existential in nature.
WEIR: But, he argues, oil and gas will still be around for generations and that the only way to fix the methane problem is to build more pipelines.
SOMMERS: We need a regulatory structure that allows these pipelines to be built, to ensure that we can get these products to market as quickly as possible.
WEIR: But, of course, scientists would say that the fate of life as we know it depends on stopping that production as soon as humanly possible. Can you have it both ways?
SOMMERS: This industry provides about 60 percent of the world's energy today. There is going to be a transition in energy, but I'm also confident that this industry is going to be around for a long time.
ROBINSON: For example, ExxonMobil and some of the other big producers have set some pretty lofty goals for how they want to keep their emissions. But we found that here in the Permian Basin, the methane leak rate is over ten times higher than what a lot of companies have set out to do.
WEIR: So, flying above it all is just another reminder that the true test of a man is what he does when he thinks no one is watching.
And those methane hunters are about to get a fancy new tool. Thanks to $100 million donation from Amazon's Jeff Bezos, they will soon have a methane-seeking satellite.
And to get a sense of the foreign policy implications, France recently shut down a $7.5 billion potential deal when they determined that West Texas natural gas is just too dirty of a fuel for them to burn in good conscience. Chances are, though, they will have plenty of customers in China and India -- Bill Weir, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Thanks, Bill, for that piece.
Now millions of Americans face weather so cold this weekend the National Weather Service calls it life-threatening. It's known as the Arctic Plunge. That's when the coldest air of the season moves south, out of Canada and another blast of cold air is forecast to hit much of the country into next week.
(WEATHER REPORT)
[04:50:00]
CURNOW: OK. You are watching CNN. We'll be right back.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[04:55:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SOUND OF MUSIC")
CURNOW (voice-over): Finally, adieu to Christopher Plummer, who has died at his home in Connecticut. The award-winning Canadian actor known for his roles on the stage, Broadway, as well as dozens of TV shows and films, is probably best known as Captain Von Trapp, the stern father in "The Sound of Music." Here is a look at Christopher Plummer's remarkable life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, ACTOR, "CAPTAIN VON TRAPP": Were you this much trouble at the abbey?
JULIE ANDREWS, ACTOR, "MARIA": Oh, much more, sir.
"VON TRAPP": Hmm.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
"MARIA": We'll have to practice.
"VON TRAPP": Do allow me, will you?
PLUMMER, "HAL": Oliver?
EWAN MCGREGOR, ACTOR, "OLIVER": Yes.
"HAL": They had wonderfully loud music in the club tonight.
What kind of music's that?
"OLIVER": Probably house music. "HAL": House music?
OK.
PLUMMER, "ROSCOE HEYWARD": Well, I must say, there are certain areas in which our ideas differ, slightly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oscar (ph) said, quote, "The atmosphere is tougher than ever."
PLUMMER, "MIKE WALLACE": Where is the rest?
Where the hell is the rest?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nebraska football fans voice their criticism.
"WALLACE": You cut it?
PLUMMER, "SHERLOCK HOLMES": The sequence of events, Prime Minister, convince me of your ability to take effective action.
PLUMMER, "CHARLES MUNTZ": Any last words, Fredricksen?
Come on, spit it out.
PLUMMER, "J. PAUL GETTY": I wonder, if the embargo is lifted and oil were to crash, I'd be exposed. I have never been more vulnerable, financially, than I am right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: The legendary actor Christopher Plummer was 91 years old.
Well, you have been watching CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow. I will be back in just a moment with more news.
