Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Texas Reels From Winter Storm; President Joe Biden's First 100 Days; Allegations of Gang Rape in Xinjiang Detention Camps; First Doses Administered in Pfizer-BioNTech Global Vaccine Trial for Pregnant Women; Ebola Outbreak in Guinea; Vatican: Employees Refusing Vaccine May Lose Their Jobs; Growing Calls for Vaccine Equity Worldwide; Growing Calls For Vaccine Equity Worldwide; Japan's Ruling Party Invites Women, But Not Their Views; New Study: Pfizer Vaccine 85 Percent Effective After One Dose; Source: Trump Denies Meeting Request From Nikki Haley; Georgia Republicans Push Elections Bill That Restricts Early And Absentee Voting. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired February 19, 2021 - 2:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Rolling blackouts, flooding. And now, it could ice all over. The latest on an area of U.S. that rarely sees snow and how they're coping.

Then, billions of dollars. That is what the U.S. will spend on global COVID-19 vaccine initiatives. President Biden's plan to be announced at the G7.

Plus, a CNN special report. Beijing allegedly adds gang rape to its brutal, ambitious campaign targeting Uyghur Muslim women.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to "CNN Newsroom." I'm Michael Holmes.

Welcome everyone. Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. State of Texas are spending another night in the freezing cold. Many of them, without power, water, even food. But, it is still an improvement from where they were just 24 hours ago when three million homes and businesses had no electricity. The extreme winter storm that hit over the weekend, knocking out much of the state's independent power grid.

And water treatment plants were forced offline, leaving 13 million people with no service, boil water notices, and broken pipes. Many are lining up to get what they can from pumps. Others say they are melting snow and collecting rainwater just so they can flush their toilets.

And the freezing weather has delayed shipments of coronavirus vaccines, too. Some clinics are cancelling appointments. The White House says vaccine shippers and facilities will just have to work double time next week.

Now, firefighters say the water problems are a serious concern as they struggle with low pressure and frozen hydrants. CNN's Camila Bernal has more from Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is what we came back to.

QIANA ABRAMS, DALLAS, TEXAS RESIDENT (voice-over): Our whole apartment! Look at the -- y'all, I cannot believe this!

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anger boiling over as Texans endure more pain. Millions are now facing a new problem, major water disruptions. This woman's apartment in Dallas -- flooded.

ABRAMS: And now we (bleep). Everything that we brought here, we don't have. Nothing, y'all.

BERNAL (voice-over): Broken pipes, failing systems, piling on to the pain Texans have felt since Sunday. The White House has declared state of emergency for Texas and Oklahoma, with 22 million from Texas to Louisiana now under hard freeze warnings.

PHILIP SHELLEY, FORTH WORTH, TEXAS RESIDENT: We are left sitting in a cold, dark room in the middle of the night with a crying baby and in pain wife. That is what hurts the most. There is nothing we can really do besides sits and wait.

BERNAL (voice-over): Texas Governor Greg Abbott pledging to reform the organization that runs nearly all of the state's power grid known as ERCOT.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): I am taking responsibility for the current status of ERCOT. Again, I find what is happening unacceptable.

BERNAL (voice-over): And saying an investigation is underway.

ABBOTT: We have already begun the process to make sure that event like this never again happen in Texas. And that starts with reforming the agency in charge of electric reliability in Texas, which is ERCOT.

BERNAL (voice-over): People are trying to do all they can to stay warm, even burning a baby crib.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): It is the only way you can stay warm because the power is out.

BERNAL (voice-over): And this mother, trying to keep her kids warm in the car.

SYLVIA CERDA SALINAS, MCALLEN, TEXAS RESIDENT (voice-over): It is horrible. We've been driving around during the day with the heat on in the car just to keep warm.

BERNAL (voice-over): The water disruptions, on top of everything.

MAYOR STEVE ADLER, AUSTIN, TEXAS: It is too much to ask of anybody. People are angry and confused, frustrated, and I am, too.

BERNAL (voice-over): The cities of Austin and San Antonio issuing boil water notices Wednesday evening.

ADLER: This is a dire place.

BERNAL (voice-over): ERCOT saying they were actually only moments away from an even more catastrophic failure.

BILL MAGNESS, CEO, ERCOT: It was seconds to minute, given the amount of generation that was coming off the system.

BERNAL (voice-over): At its peak, more than three million people were without power. The vast majority have had their power restored. Some may be days away from getting it back. And people here want answers now.

RACHEL SIEGAL, DALLAS, TEXAS RESIDENT: I expect a full apology as to how this has been handled. And I expect some sort of solution so that this doesn't happen again.

BERNAL (on camera): And most of the people that we talked to over the last couple of days say they agree with the investigation.

[02:04:58]

BERNAL (on camera): They want to know exactly what happened here in Texas and why this became such a big mess. But before they get any answers, they need to deal with the problems in front of them. And for millions of Texans, that problem is water. Not just boil water notices, there are many people here who don't have any water whatsoever. So what they are doing is collecting some of that ice and that snow, putting it into buckets, taking it inside their homes for later use.

In Dallas, Texas, Camila Bernal, CNN.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HOLMES (on camera): Now, we are also following some other big stories from the White House and President Joe Biden's first 100 days in office.

Mr. Biden's State Department says the U.S. would sit down for talks with Tehran and other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal before either side takes any tangible action towards compliance.

Plus, the president will be speaking with G7 leaders in the coming hours, where he will unveil a $2 billion U.S. contribution to a global COVID vaccine initiative. All aimed at helping low and middle income countries.

And Mr. Biden will also travel to the U.S. State of Michigan to visit Pfizer's vaccine manufacturing site.

CNN political analyst Josh Rogin joins me now from Washington. He is also a foreign policy columnist for The Washington Post. His new book, "Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century," that's going to be released on March the 9th. Looking forward to that. Josh, I want to start with the Iran nuclear deal. I mean, the U.S. is saying it would accept this E.U. invitation to group talks between the P5+1 and Iran over the nuclear deal. What does that signal to you and where does the momentum lie right now?

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, FOREIGN POLICY COLUMNIST FOR THE WASHINGTON POST: It just shows how eager the Biden administration is to get this process started. They don't know where it was gonna go, they don't know what the terms are going to be.

Two senior State Department officials briefed reporters tonight. They said, listen, we're just going to sit down and see what happens because this is a priority, this is what the Biden administration wants to focus on.

So they're going to move forward. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy, doesn't mean it's going to be quick. But in all of the issues that they're dealing with, this is the one that they are devoting very high-level attention to and are willing to take a risk on and a risk it is.

HOLMES: Yeah, it has wide ramifications. I want to turn to the G7 now, and of course, Joe Biden has said, you know, U.S. is back, diplomacy is back. This is going to be his first chance to really prove it on that global stage. What does he need to do to reassure allies in the world at this virtual gathering?

ROGIN: Biden administration officials tell me that their mission is very simple, to restore the idea that the G7 should be about strengthening the alliances, and then to focus on basic, drawn out lines of how these democracies and large economies can work together on big issues, primarily the coronavirus pandemic, also China, also the economic problems that we all face.

But, it's kind of a low bar. So all Biden has to do really to beat Trump is to show up, read his lines, and to not have any gaps. If he does that, he'll already be improving America's performance behavior.

HOLMES: Yeah, show up and be polite. What about, more generally, the G7 as a body? I mean, in real world terms, what is its effectiveness? What does it achieve? The declarations are usually incredibly vague, so everybody is happy and can agree on it, which often makes it pointless, so impotent. What is the good of it?

ROGIN: Yeah, it really has become pretty feckless over recent years and under Trump even more so because the United States couldn't even muster itself to join a joint statement its European allies.

I think, you know, what it represents is potential. And if you actually have the seven large economies working together on big problems and those problems include climate change, energy, the health of our planet, and all of these other things, if you wanted to, you can make it into something great. They just never had really been able to do that.

Now, under Trump, it was particularly bad because they could barely even stand the sight of each other. That is now better, but it's going to be really tough for them to do anything substantive this year, one, because they're not sitting together, and two, because, you know, every country is dealing with its own domestic calamity and that has to be their priority now.

What they've decided to do is to invite India, Australia, and South Korea to try to make it into something called a D10, an alliance of democracies. That sounds nice. That presents an idea of systems kind of competition with China that is being mounted with some sort of strategy, but just having everybody on the Zoom in one time doesn't actually solve any problems.

[02:10:00]

ROGIN: From what I hear from the Biden administration people, they are not looking to solve any problems. They're just looking to get in and get out relatively unscathed.

HOLMES: I guess in the past four years, you know, you've had tensions with China and Iran. They've just grown. You've had Russia going unchecked. North Korea has become a bigger nuclear threat. And as we said, the relationship with allies has been damaged. How long is Joe Biden's foreign policy to-do list?

ROGIN: It's endless. It's a list that he has no hope of accomplishing in his first four years or even in eight years. But it's a list that won't go away. When you talk about cooperating to combat the pandemic, it is something you just can't avoid. When you talk about cooperating to deal with the challenge of a rising China, well, that is something all of these countries are dealing with.

So again, they can make small progress on each of these issues, but none of these problems can be solved in a meeting, much less a year, much less in one term of the administration. They just have to get on the same page and get on the right path. I realized that is a very sort of low bar and low expectation, but for a lot of us here in Washington, it is actually kind of refreshment change of pace.

HOLMES: Yeah, a relief in many ways. Josh Rogin there in Washington, I appreciate it. Good to see you.

ROGIN: Any time.

HOLMES (on camera): And now for a CNN special report, shocking allegations of gang rape are emerging from detention camps in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. government accuses China of the mass internment of more than a million members of mostly Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang in recent years, all part of a policy that the U.S. State Department says amounts to genocide.

Beijing denies this, claiming that the camps are actually vocational training centers aimed at creating jobs and stamping out Islamist extremism.

Ivan Watson explains for us, and a warning, this report has language that might be disturbing for some viewers. (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNKNOWN: (INAUDIBLE).

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The traumatized survivor of a 9-month nightmare. Tursunay Ziyawudun, a refugee from China's Xinjiang region, describes the torture and rape she says she endured during detention in a Chinese internment camp.

(On camera): How is your help today after your experience in the camps?

TURSUNAY ZIYAWUDUN, FORMER XINJIANG CAMP DETAINEE (through translator): I was in a lot of pain and suffered bleeding. After I arrived in the U.S., I had to undergo surgery and my uterus was removed. I suffered a lot of damage.

WATSON (voice-over): Tursunay is an ethnic Uyghur. In March 2018, she says police in Xinjiang detained her at a so-called vocational training center for women.

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): Because I lived in Kazakhstan for five years, they wanted me to confess that I was influenced by American propaganda and foreign organizations.

WATSON (voice-over): During one interrogation, Tursunay says guards beat and kicked her until she blacked out. In the camp, Tursunay says authorities began forcibly implanting female detainees with contraceptive IUDs. After a botched procedure led to bleeding, she says she was taken into a room.

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): There were three guards. They inserted a stun baton inside me and twisted and shocked me with it. I passed out.

WATSON (voice-over): On a separate occasion, she says guards wearing masks once again took her from her cell.

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): In the next room, I heard another girl crying and screaming. I saw about five men going into that room. I thought they were torturing her. Then I was gang raped. After that, I realized what they also did to her.

WATSON (voice-over): Tursunay first revealed these claims in an interview with the BBC. The Chinese government did not answer our questions about the women named in this report. But Beijing did vehemently deny any human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

WENG WANBIN, CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): There has never been such a thing as systematic sexual abuse and mistreatment against women. China is a country ruled by law.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Why you are here?

WATSON (voice-over): There is strict state censorship in Xinjiang and police followed and harassed CNN journalist when they last visited.

(On camera): Tursunay claims she was held at a facility outside the city of Ghulja. CNN has also obtained rare testimony from another woman, who says she worked in a camp near the city of Urumqi.

QELBINUR SIDIK, FORMER TEACHER IN XINJIANG CAMP (through translator): The women all had their hair shaved off. They wore grey uniforms with orange vests and printed numbers on them.

WATSON (voice-over): For 28 years, Qelbinur Sidik worked as an elementary school teacher. In 2017, she says she was ordered to teach mandarin at an internment camp holding thousands of women. Speaking from relative safety in the Netherlands, Qelbinur says on her first day of work in the camp, she witnessed a disturbing sight.

SIDIK (through translator): Two soldiers were carrying a Uyghur girl out on a stretcher. There was no spark of life on her face.

[02:15:00]

SIDIK (through translator): Later, a female police officer told me the girl died on her way to the hospital due to heavy bleeding.

WATSON (voice-over): Although Qelbinur did not know the cause of the woman's death, she says later that same female police officer told her male guards routinely gang raped detainees at the camp. The officer also told her --

SIDIK (through translator): When they drink at night, policeman told each other how they raped and tortured girls.

WATSON (voice-over): In previous reporting on China's mass internment policy in Xinjiang, CNN heard testimony from (INAUDIBLE), a citizen of Kazakhstan, who alleges that she endured sexual assault from a guard during prolonged detention in Xinjiang.

CNN cannot independently verify the accounts of these women. China has attacked their credibility, calling these women actors playing victims from Xinjiang.

(On camera): The Chinese government says no women are abused in the camps.

ZIYAWUDUN: Ah.

WATSON (on camera): What do you say to the Chinese government?

ZIYAWUDUN (through translator): I'm a 43-year-old woman. Do you think this is something I'd be proud of showing with the whole world? I would tell them that I'm not afraid of them anymore because they already killed my soul.

WATSON (voice-over): She hopes her brave decision to speak out will encourage others to do the same.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HOLMES: (on camera): And this just in to CNN. A protester who was shot in the head last week in Myanmar has died. Mya Thweh Thweh Khine spent 10 days in critical condition before she passed away. A doctor says a live bullets fired by police pierced the motorcycle helmet she was wearing. So far, she is the only protester we know who has been killed in these demonstrations.

For two weeks now, thousands of people have been marching against the military coup that took place earlier this month. We are continuing to monitor protests, which continue today.

Now, we have much to report on COVID-19 for you, but another virus is trying to make a comeback in Africa. Ahead, a live report on what is being done to fight Ebola.

And with everything we have yet to learn about COVID-19, Pfizer- BioNTech has a new study underway, this time studying its vaccine on pregnant women and their babies. We will have a live report. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES (on camera): Pfizer and BioNTech say that the first participants of their new global coronavirus vaccine trial have received their first dose. Here is what is special about this trial. It is for pregnant women. The first doses went to women in the U.S., but the trial will also include women from eight other countries.

CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta breaks it down for us.

[02:20:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Since several thousand women, usually pregnant women around 24 weeks of pregnancy, that is when they're starting this.

And they're basically going to follow them along, and they're going to follow the babies along, as well, after the babies are born, looking for, exactly what you think, safety and efficacy, but also looking to see if the antibodies that a pregnant woman gets as a result of the vaccine are then transmitted to the baby and how good are those antibodies, how long do they last.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): And CNN's Melissa Bell joins me now live. So, Melissa, it's obviously an important trial. Tell us more about it and what questions they are looking to answer.

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Basically, for the time being, there's been very little information on, specifically, what vaccines present in terms of risks to pregnant women. It's an important study that is coming.

This is, I gather, a fairly common practice, that these vaccines, of course, are first of all test on the general population and then on subpopulations like pregnant women only after. It is, of course, an important question. You can imagine, for all of those pregnant women, wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated. These findings will be crucial.

Two things, particularly, of course being looked at, Michael. First of all, whether the vaccine can cause any harm to the pregnant women themselves, provoking things like miscarriages, but then also, as Sanjay Gupta was just saying, what kind of immunity is then passed on to the infants?

If you take, for instance, the flu jab, we know that that leads to antibodies being passed on to the child, which can last until the child is six months old. The question will be to find out whether the same is true for this very important vaccine that, of course, the whole world waits with such impatience.

HOLMES: So, let's switch to the bigger picture now where you are in Europe. The E.U. vaccination campaign is pretty slow to start. Where does it stand now?

BELL: Well, it remains pretty slow, Michael, and well short of the targets that European officials have set themselves. What they want is for the E.U. to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the summer.

And now to give you an idea of where things stand for the time being, you look at the United Kingdom's vaccination, 23 percent of its population has received at least one dose of the vaccine.

European countries are well short of that. The one that is doing the best for the time being, Michael, Denmark is at 4.5 percent of its population. But the European countries that are the largest, those within the E.U. that have the largest population, so I am thinking here of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, they are all beneath four percent.

So that gives you an idea of the challenge that lies ahead for these countries that have had such a slow beginning in the rollout of their vaccine campaign.

Of course, one of the big questions remains, the question of supply, and bear in mind that some of those vaccines, for instance, the AstraZeneca one in many European countries, is not being recommended for people over 65. So those shortfalls that the European Union is very keen to make up for and looking very much ahead to what future vaccines may be approved by the European Medicines Agency to help along with that.

HOLMES: All right. Melissa Bell there in Paris, good to see you, thanks so much.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is beginning its COVID vaccination campaigns. So far, it is using China's Sinopharm vaccine, the first of the 200,000 doses are going to frontline health care workers, as you might expect, as well as the country's vice president and health minister. The Zimbabwe president is calling this a historic moment in our fight against the virus.

Another shipment of vaccines, heading to Africa, too, but these are for the fight against Ebola. They are going to the West African nation of Guinea.

David McKenzie is covering this rollout for us from Johannesburg. Tell us about it, David.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You remember that very, very serious outbreak and pandemic or epidemic in 2014, Michael, which really ripped through Guinea and all the West African nations close to it. More than 11,000 people died.

So that's why there's a great fear. This Ebola outbreak confirmed in the southern part of Guinea bordering countries is very similar scenario to what we saw then. They are shipping some 11,000 vaccines just this weekend and then 20,000 more possibly coming from the U.S. soon.

The real struggle now is contact tracing and surveillance to try and stamp out this very deadly virus before it spreads uncontrollably. Michael?

HOLMES: I guess, you know, in the big picture, it's a small number of vaccines. I mean, is it gonna make much of a difference?

MCKENZIE: It is a good question because, you know, with COVID, we are talking about millions and millions of vaccines. But this is not a respiratory illness. This is a hemorrhagic fever. People get very sick and can die very quickly. But it's a little bit -- actually a lot harder to catch. You need physical contact.

[02:24:59]

MCKENZIE: Often during funeral rites is where people catch Ebola from those victims. And a small number of the vaccine can make a very big difference. So, unlike COVID, when you get a million vaccines in, you vaccinate everybody to stop a respiratory disease from circulating.

You can use a ring vaccine strategy. So what they will do, and that is why contact tracing is so important, they will find the early cases, they will very carefully do the detective work to find out who is in touch with those cases, and then they will vaccinate just those people and the contact of those people.

Think of it like a fence, a ring fence around these groups. Because it is harder to catch than COVID, hopefully, then you can stop it in its tracks in that isolated area. The problem is it is in that border region, at least one case, possibly went to the capital, Conakry.

And given the disaster of the West African outbreak in 2014, Michael, they are really pulling out all the stops. Even the White House, President Biden, aware of the situation because they can't afford this to get out of control again. Michael?

HOLMES: Yeah, just so contagious. David McKenzie in Johannesburg, thanks.

We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, people around the world lining up for the coronavirus vaccine, but the vast majority of vaccines are only available in wealthy nations. Up next, the initiatives to get shots to everyone who needs them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES (on camera): Now, those who don't want to receive a vaccine who work at the Vatican might want to think twice. The city's state governor says everyone must get inoculated or risk losing their job.

CNN's Delia Gallagher explains.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Vatican has told its employees if they don't get vaccinated for COVID-19, they risk losing their jobs. The decree from the governor of the Vatican City state Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello calls vaccination a responsible decision and says that those employees who refuse without a legitimate health reason may be transferred or have their contract terminated.

Pope Francis is a big proponent of vaccinations for COVID-19. He himself has been vaccinated, and he has called it an ethical choice. The Vatican has about four and a half thousand employees and they began vaccinations for employees and their families on January 13th.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Vatican has reported 27 cases of coronavirus, most of those occurred among the Swiss guards who live together in barracks inside the Vatican walls.

Delia Gallagher, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): The WHO will launch a declaration later today, pushing for greater vaccine equity.

[02:30:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, W.H.O. DIRECTOR: Everywhere means everywhere. No where should be left behind?

(END VIDEO CLILP)

HOLMES: The call to inoculate underprivileged communities is also being echoed by Britain's Prince Charles.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PRINCE CHARLES, UNITED KINGDOM: Vaccination will save lives, will prevent serious illness, will protect our health service, and will allow us to start to hope that things may return, in some sense, to normal for every member of our society. As you undertake this absolutely vital work, that can only wish you all every possible success in coming to the aide of our ethnic minority communities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Meanwhile, the biotech company, Novavax, has blitzed more than one billion doses of its COVID vaccine to the global initiative called Covax. Now this comes a day after the U.N. announced that just 10 countries have received 75 percent of all Coronavirus vaccines.

Dr. Mogha Kamal-Yanni is an adviser to the people's vaccine alliance. She joins me now from Oxford, England doctor, thank you for doing so. I want to get your reaction first of all to the Biden Administration changing the Trump position, and announcing $4 million going into Covax vaccinations around the world. How big of a deal is that from a global perspective?

DR. MOGHA KAMAL-YANNI, ADVISOR TO THE PEOPLE'S VACCINE ALLIANCE: It's a very, very important deal, having the U.S. before being out of the international community really, in tackling this horrible pandemic. This pandemic was really bad, not just for everybody on the planet, but mostly for Americans because you cannot, really, tackle this virus just within your borders. So coming back is important.

HOLMES: And in a bigger picture, the United Nation says once 130 countries yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. I guess it is understandable that countries would want to look after their own people first, but explain how important it is, globally, to vaccinate everyone, to reduce the impact of so-called vaccine nationalism?

DR. KAMAL-YANNI: OK. So, it is important from a number of perspectives. One from public health that in the sense that you can't raise your orders and vaccinate your people and say, that's it, that's OK, we control the virus. You can't, because the virus is everywhere else.

Who you're going to trade with? How you get people to visit your country and enhance your economy? It's just not going to work. Actually, what is happening now, to scare everybody away from this old care about our domestic population? It's a mutation.

If that mutation are - if that mutation that we have now and so-called Africa variant, it's the one that will spread all over the globe. Already, we know that the efficacy of most of the vaccines that we have now is low on that virus so on that mutation.

So if have further mutation, mutation that can affect the vaccines, they can make the vaccines just utterly useless. So it's not really a great public health policy. It's not good for the global and national economies. Of course, it is a moral disaster. HOLMES: yes, that's the thing. If you don't vaccinate those other countries, variants like transmission, if it is transmitting there, you going to get more variants, and then you vaccinate a wealthy nation, you get hit all over again.

In 2006, there was still, of course, the fears of a bird flu pandemic. The Bush Administration launched a program to teach the world how to make a flu vaccine? With COVID, how much of an issue, or factor is a big former perhaps wanting to make a profit, rather than make vaccine development, production, distribution of global efforts, sort of sharing the recipe, if you like.

DR. KAMAL-YANNI: Well, this is a problem, every country is struggling to have its own vaccines, and we haven't heard, globally, saying, look, we have a problem with supplies. We do not have sufficient doses of any vaccine at the moment, or next month or the month after.

So, it is like all nations, particularly some are fighting to have their big share of a small pie, and of course, the crumbs will be left to developing countries. So what we are talking about is that instead of the fight, expand the pie.

Have the biggest pie ever, and that happens when all companies in the world that have potential manufacturing capacities are enabled to produce vaccines. To do that, you have to share the technology, you have to share the know-how, and you need to not worry about intellectual property.

[02:35:00]

DR. KAMAL-YANNI: And bare in, mind we are really paid for that technology. Remember that the vaccines didn't come yesterday. The vaccines are the result of years, and years, of research that was funded by government funding research institutions, and universities.

And then last year, government poured money literally on pharmaceutical companies to produce this - these vaccines so, therefore, we already paid for it. So we have to share the technology, just like the example you gave and more than that actually.

HOLMES: It's a very good point, it is paid for. Dr. Mogha Kamal-Yanni, Advisor to the Peoples Vaccine Alliance, appreciate your time, thanks so much very important issue.

DR. KAMAL-YANNI: Thank you.

HOLMES: Now, female lawmakers in Japan are finally being invited into the room where it happens but, only to take a look the invitation, and the backlash, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back. Japan's ruling party is looking to shake things up a bit, and allow women to attend key political meetings. But, the offer comes with the condition that is, causing outrage. Joining us now from Tokyo with details CNN's Selina Wang. OK, tell us about the proposal, and the reaction to it in Japan?

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Michael, I've spoken to many women here in Japan who says that this is just another example of sexism in Japan's elderly, male dominated, political elite. Now, this proposal came from the ruling party, which was that more women should attend these key meetings, but on the condition that they do not speak.

Now only two of the parties, 12 member board are women, and only 3 of its 25 member general counsel are women. I spoke to - one of Japan's most prominent female lawmakers, and she told me Japan as a democracy without women.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WANG (voice over): This is what Japan's leadership looks like. The ruling party now wants more women at key meetings as long as they don't. The liberal Democratic Party proposed allowing 5 female lawmakers joining it's nearly all male board meetings, but only as observers.

The party's 82-year-old Secretary General said it's important for women to quote, understand what kind of political discussions are happening. So it's about letting them take a look, outraged ensued. Social media users described the LDB proposal as tone deaf and yet another example of deep rooted sexism in Japanese society.

Japanese Writer Mieko Kawakami that women are treated as 2nd class citizens forever here in Japan. Others mocked the idea as a field trip for women; the proposal comes in response that the board is dominated by men.

[02:40:00]

WANG (voice over): On February 15th, Tomomi Inada was Japan's 2nd Female Defense Minister wrote this letter to - asking for more representation of female lawmakers.

TOMOMI INADA, LAWMAKER: Japan is a democracy without women, the perception that politics should be done by men still widely exist here in Japan and the perception that good women are those who behave properly and don't push themselves forward, also still exists.

WANG (voice over): Just days before Yoshiro Mori the 83-year-old Tokyo Olympics Chief resigned after making sexist comments that women speak too much during meetings, resulting in international condemnation. Experts say Japanese politicians have gotten away with blatantly sexist comments in years past but no longer.

KATHY MATSUI, FORMER VICE CHAIRWOMAN, GOLMAN SACHS: 10, 20, 30 years ago people would have just sort of brushed it off oh that's another politician making a foot in the mouth comment and write it off whereas now, particularly in this world of social media you can't get away with it that easily.

WANG (voice over): World economic forum calls Japan's gender gap by far the largest among all the advanced economies, ranking at 144th place on its political empowerment index between Qatar and Iran. Fewer than 10 percent of Japan's House of Representatives are women just 46 out of 465 members.

Inada says Japan is still 20 years behind other developed countries in gender equality, and that more drastic changes needed. I think we should introduce a quota system, we're proposing to make 30 percent of candidates of election female, without doing this I don't think we will have enough change or even 10 or 20 years.

WANG (on camera): What about yourself? Do you have plans to become prime minister? She says yes essential keep challenging the status quo.

Now the woman I spoke to said that we are starting to see a shift here in Japan, more people, both men and women, expressing their outrage on social media and hopes for real, and lasting change, that is not just superficial.

Dr. Tomomi Inada told me that one of the key challenges is changing this deeply ingrained mindset in Japan of these traditional roles for men and women. She said that it is still widely accepted for there to be no win in, or just one woman, in key meetings.

But she said it is a step forward, the people are now being held accountable for these sexist remarks that, in years past, would've gone unnoticed, or been brushed off as a joke. Michael?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, Selina Wang, extraordinary isn't it? It is 2021, thanks for that, Selina Wang. Now, NASA's perseverance rover landed safely on Mars on Thursday. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Touchdown confirmed we have landed safely on the surface of Mars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: They're pretty happy, and why wouldn't they be. Perseverance, marking the moment with the tweets "I am safe on Mars, perseverance will get you anywhere". And we are told the rover is a she. It was an ambitious landing inside of a crater that used to be a lake billions of years ago. You are looking, right there, at the first images that the rover sent back. Extraordinary

Thanks for watching everyone, spending part of your day with me, I am Michael Holmes, World Sport up next, we'll see you in about 15 minutes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:00]