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Israeli Police Sweep through Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound; U.S. to Give Vaccines to South Korean Service Members; Taiwan COVID-19 Cases Spike. Aired 12-12:15a ET
Aired May 22, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes.
It's now 7 am in Israel and Gaza. The cease-fire agreed to earlier Friday entering its second day. But all is not quiet.
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HOLMES (voice-over): Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem ended with stun grenades fired by Israeli forces as they swept through the plaza, also shooting rubber bullets. Israeli police say they were responding to a riot.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reports 20 people were hurt. The Palestinian Authority issuing a statement condemning the Israeli action as a threat to the fragile cease-fire.
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HOLMES: Gaza itself is calm but 11 days of Israeli airstrikes took a heavy toll in life and property. The United Nations allocating more than $22 million in humanitarian aid. Two border crossings were opened on Friday to allow aid trucks, including a mobile hospital from Jordan. We get the latest now from Ben Wedeman in Gaza.
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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was a home, this was the kitchen, the mundane trappings of everyday life all gone.
The cease-fires holding and now the people of Gaza are able to see what this war has wrought. Shortly after midnight on May 16th, Israeli warplanes bombed buildings on this street in Gaza City, killing more than 40 people according to the health ministry here. Two of this man's daughters were killed. He says the Israeli army gave no warning.
"Our souls to them are cheaper than a phone call," he says. "They could've called and said, 'Evacuate the building.' You want to hit tunnels? Hit them but you have to warn us." Israel claims it was targeting tunnels in the neighborhood and
collapsing the buildings was unintended. Those buildings are now jagged mounds of concrete and metal, littered with the odds and ends of lives lost, lives ruined.
"I thought, that is it, I'm going to die," says a teacher who lives on the street. "I felt judgment day had come."
Members of Hamas' military wing parade by the ruins of a war they claim to have emerged from victorious.
Four wars, 13 years have not shaken the group's grip on power as life in Gaza has gone from bad to worse. Gaza has been under an Israeli Egyptian blockade since 2007. Power is on just a few hours a day. The tap water undrinkable. And unemployment is running at nearly 50 percent. All of that made worse by this war.
WEDEMAN: Israel calls its occasional operations in Gaza "mowing the lawn," cutting Hamas down to size. Sometimes, however, it looks like it's throwing Gaza back into the pre-industrial age.
WEDEMAN (voice-over): Yet, for the first time in 11 days, life resumed a semblance of normalcy. There is no longer a need to hide -- for now -- Ben Wedeman, CNN, Gaza.
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HOLMES: The U.S. President says the most recent round of conflict has not dampened his commitment to Israel. That's even as some of his fellow Democrats have changed their tone over just how much support to give that country.
Here's why Joe Biden said on Friday.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no shift in my commitment, my commitment to the security of Israel, period, no shift, not at all.
But I tell you what there is a shift in. The shift is that we have to -- we still need a two-state solution. It is the only answer, the only answer.
Let's get something straight here. Until the region says unequivocally they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace.
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HOLMES: The president made those remarks at a joint news conference with his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in.
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HOLMES: The president announcing that the U.S. will provide COVID-19 vaccinations for more than half a million South Korean service members who work in close contact with American forces.
Now the COVID-19 death toll in Latin America and the Caribbean has now surpassed 1 million, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University. Brazil has recorded the most virus deaths, with more than 440,000 people killed since the pandemic began.
And cases are increasing in much of South America. Argentina seeing a record surge this week and imposing stricter lockdown measures until the end of the month. CNN's Matt Rivers with the details.
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MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There are now new restrictive lockdown measures in place in Argentina as a result of what that country's president is calling the worst moment of the pandemic for that country so far.
Last week we saw multiple single day records for new infections set and these new restrictions are being put in place because of that. The restrictions, including the closures of all nonessential businesses; schools are closed. Only essential workers will be allowed out each day from 6 am to 6 pm. When the president announced the measures earlier this week, here is a little bit of what he said.
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ALBERTO FERNANDEZ, PRESIDENT OF ARGENTINA (through translator): Today more than ever we need to take care of each other.
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RIVERS: The president says he is aware of the fact that this country's economy is already struggling. He knows these restrictive measures will not help with that situation. But he says he really has no choice. He cannot let case numbers like this, death numbers like this, become normalized.
If you look this situation in Argentina is really quite bad. Take a look at the graph here and you can see that the average infections reported each day in both the United States and Argentina, they're at roughly similar levels despite the fact the United States has a population roughly 7 times greater than Argentina's -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Mexico City.
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HOLMES: Taiwan, meanwhile, racing to find more COVID vaccines as it faces its worst outbreak since the pandemic began. Cases are spiking, even with new restrictions put in place.
But some 1 percent of the population has been inoculated and supplies are running low. Now the self ruled island asking the U.S. for help. CNN's Will Ripley is live for us from Taipei.
Will, Taiwan is asking the West for help and also politics in play because of China, Taiwan tensions when it comes to vaccines. WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michael, as much as we would like
this to be just focused on the pandemic, getting people vaccinated, because Taiwan has 700,000 doses of vaccine that have arrived in the country for the entire pandemic, there are 23 million people who live in the self governing island.
The Chinese foreign ministry has blasted this week the Taiwanese leadership, saying that they are using COVID-19 as a tool of political manipulation because there's really been a back and forth all week, with China first offering to help, putting a message through their mainland affairs office.
Then China's Taiwan affairs office, and the mainland office here in Taipei firing back saying that the offer was disingenuous and that in fact China is standing in the way of it getting the vaccines it needs, trying to railroad them into buying Chinese made vaccines when the government here has been seeking foreign made vaccines, seen as more reliable as they work to develop their own vaccines here possibly available to the public as soon as late July, according to the Taiwanese president.
If you look at the numbers compared to just before I arrived a week ago, Michael, yes, the numbers are small. But it's extraordinary to see how quickly things are changing here on the ground.
Last Friday there were 1,200 total cases. Just 164 cases local. This past Friday, yesterday, look at how the number almost tripled in terms of total cases. Look at the number of local cases, nearly 2,000.
We will undoubtedly, probably, surpass the 2,000 mark of local cases when they announce the numbers at 2 o'clock Eastern time, 2 pm local time in Taipei. So the numbers are rising quickly.
And, of course, when you have a population that has no herd immunity and a shortage of vaccines, there is great concern here that this situation could get a lot worse.
So the back and forth political, you know, jabbing, if you will, between the mainland and Taiwan is certainly not helpful at this stage, as they try to get the situation under control. And there is even talk of possibly doing something to Taiwan that's never been done before, a level 4 lockdown. They've gone through the whole pandemic without a lockdown.
Although the criteria, the health minister saying for reaching a lockdown would be more than 50 percent of the cases being untraceable. Right now he says that just about 25 percent of the cases are untraceable.
They certainly would like to avoid a lockdown if at all possible. Really, the coming days are going to be the true indicator of whether that can be avoided.
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HOLMES: Yes, a worrying trajectory at the moment. Will Ripley in Taipei for us.
France and Germany each pledging to share 30 million vaccine doses with poor countries by the end of the year. That is not the only amounts. Delia Gallagher is in Rome for us.
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DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Some good news from the G20 global health summit. European Commission president Ursula van der Leyen saying that pharmaceutical companies will donate 1.3 billion vaccines to low and middle income countries and that the European countries would donate 100 million vaccines by the end of this year.
Italian prime minister Mario Draghi, who hosted the event, called the staggering numbers he said that would change the landscape. The U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said that the United States would continue to donate their extra doses as they have been doing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has offered to donate $3 billion in the next 3 years to help the pandemic in developing countries.
More long term, the summit has said they will finance vaccination production hubs in Africa. German chancellor Angela Merkel says their focus is on Africa because they are currently only producing 1 percent of the vaccines that they need.
The G20 countries signed the Rome declaration, which has a series of measures calling for international cooperation to help avoid future pandemics -- Delia Gallagher, CNN, Rome.
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HOLMES: And Germany will require travelers from the U.K. to quarantine for 2 weeks upon entering the country. That begins midnight Saturday night. German officials designated Britain and Northern Ireland, quote, "virus variant region" because of the uptick in cases of the variant first found in India.
Spain, on the other hand, rolling out the red carpet for British and Japanese travelers starting Monday. Visitors from those countries will be able to enter Spain without health controls. But British travelers will still have to quarantine for 10 days when they get home to the U.K.
In China, 3 people are dead from a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that struck Saturday morning near the city of Dali (ph) in the southern part of the country. Chinese state media says dozens more are injured. The quake damaged thousands of homes and a stronger 7.3 magnitude quake was reported but fortunately in a less populated area in central China.
I'm Michael Holmes, thanks for spending part of your day with me. I will see you a bit later with more news. Meanwhile "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is next.
