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Eastern Germany Submerged in Flood; Children Missed Immunizations Due to COVID; Indonesia With Soaring Death Toll in Children; Coronavirus Far from Dissipating; Soldiers Deployed to Restore Calm in South Africa; Indonesia Children Suffer As Delta Wave Worsens; COVID-19 Cases Surge In Tokyo With Olympics One Week Away; Lebanon's Crisis Deepens; Operation To Relocate Afghan Allies; Spain's Coastal Tourism Economy Struggles To Recover. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired July 16, 2021 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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MICHEAL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): Dozens dead after a severe flooding strikes western Europe. More than 1,000 people missing in one German district alone.

Plus, we're live in Durban, South Africa, one of many cities rocked by a week of violence and looting.

And more details emerging on the assassination of Haiti's president. We have new video for moments after a deadly shoot up between police and the suspected assassins.

Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes. I appreciate your company. This is CNN Newsroom.

Welcome, everyone.

It is 9 a.m. in western Germany where one district reports some 1,300 people are, quote, "assumed missing" after extreme flooding that hit several countries. Torrential downpour and the resulting floods have claimed at least 81 lives in Germany. The hardest hit nation the German army deployed to help in the cleanup. At least 12 people have died in Belgium.

Meteorologist is describing it as the heaviest rainfall in a century. Danish authorities are asking more than 9,000 people to leave their homes as floodwaters rise in one city. Experts say intense downpours such as these are becoming more common as the climate gets warmer.

And Nina dos Santos begins our coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Torrential rains and severe flooding are causing havoc across Europe. Leaving dozens dead and extensive damage in their wake. Rivers overflow their banks. Houses collapsed. Roads washed away and a muddy mess left behind. Parts of Germany received over 200 millimeters of rain in just nine hours. Two firefighters are among the dead there. Others left with nothing.

EDGAR GILLESSEN, FLOOD VICTIM (through translator): Are these people living here I know them well. I feel so sorry for them. They've lost everything. All they have as what they had on them. It's all gone. A friend had a workshop over there, nothing standing. The bakery, the butcher, it's all gone. It's scary, unimaginable.

DOS SANTOS: This dramatic scene in western Germany has some people left stranded on their rooftops were rescued by helicopters. Across the border in Belgium this man braved the water to check on his neighbors. Water nearly reaching his windows.

The village of Pepinster devastated. Homes have collapsed and cars were swallowed up by the rising water. One man says he is worried about his family.

CYRIL HENIN, FLOOD VICTIM (through translator): My mother was stuck in a house over there with my brothers and my sisters. The walls of the house are starting to crack. And the house is at risk of collapse.

DOS SANTOS: In the Netherlands a care home was evacuated during the storm. Dutch authorities hope to get overly residents to safety fearing the facility could lose electricity and other supplies.

Visiting Washington on Thursday the German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she is thinking of those in her homeland.

ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): These are terrible days for the people in the flooded areas. My thoughts are with you, and you can trust that all forces of our government federal, regional, and community, collectively will do everything under most difficult conditions to save lives, alleviate dangers to relieve distress.

DOS SANTOS: This as she ordered to Germany's military to help in some of the hardest hit areas. A German meteorologist says that in some areas they haven't seen this much rainfall in 100 years. And the country is in for more bad news. Weather forecasters say additional rainfall is expected in southwestern Germany in the days to come.

Nina dos Santos, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and her finance minister are working to provide aid for the flood victims but there are concerns that even after the waters recede the risk won't go away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OLAF SCHOLZ, GERMAN VICE CHANCELLOR & FINANCE MINISTER (through translator): This is a natural disaster. But the fact that this natural disaster is taking place in this way certainly is connected to the fact that climate change is progressing at a speed that we have observed for a while. That must be another incentive and also an obligation for all of those who have become victims here. For us to do everything we can to stop man-made climate change and present such disasters in the scale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:05:07]

HOLMES (on camera): And let's bring in meteorologist Derek Van Dan. And inevitably, the talk turns to climate change, and the more warm air, more moisture, perhaps changes in the jet stream and so on. What is the factor that you are looking at here? What factors play into this?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Well, we have to learn to adapt and we have to learn to mitigate as well. See this high energy very sudden torrents of rainfall in the summertime is what we would expect to see in a warming climate. And unfortunately, when they intersect here is the high population density you've got all kinds of problems.

Of course, you just mentioned that, Michael, you said warmer air can hold more water vapor which ultimately can create more rainfall and unfortunately left to scenes like this. Let's go back 48 hours when the radar was most active and the duration of the storm was really picking up in intensity.

We're talking Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. And I want you to see how the showers and thunderstorms moved over some of the same locations across Belgium, as well as western Germany into Luxembourg and parts of the Netherlands. Yes, climate change is disrupting the general flow of the atmosphere, the jet streams are getting weaker.

So, we get this cut off low pressure systems that meander. There really are basically cut off from that general flow of the atmosphere so they sit, they spin, and they produce heavy rainfall over the same location.

Here is my case in point. This is a water vapor imagery. Notice that swirl in the mass of clouds. Right? That is going over the same location, that's not moving anywhere very quickly and that is why we have rainfall total here exceed 200 millimeters on a nine-hour period. That cost these scenes, these catastrophic scenes just tossing these cars, for instance, like they were toys.

I did a bit of math and we figured out that 15 centimeters of moving water can actually swipe a person off its feet. But 60 centimeters of moving water can float a vehicle and swipe that on the roadway as well. So that is the force behind water.

How much water is coming? How much more rain do we have in the forecast? Well, the bulk of the precipitation starting to move south out of the worst impacted regions but there are still showers in this three-day forecast so that will create another 15 to 25 millimeters of rain along the southern fringes into the alps region. That's where we could see some of those high rainfall totals. The bulk of the precipitation moves in to the Adriatic. Michael?

HOLMES: All right. Derek, thank you for that, I appreciate it. Derek Van Dam for us.

Now the World Health Organization says it is not time to relax about the coronavirus pandemic. They say it's still represents a public health emergency of international concern. And we are seeing evidence of that all across the world.

Across the African continent cases and deaths are soaring especially in northern countries. The WHO says deaths have risen 43 percent this week over the week before. Health systems under pressure running out of ICU beds and oxygen and less than 2 percent of the continent is fully vaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATSHIDISO MOETI, WHO REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR AFRICA: As the surge sweeps across Africa we're witnessing a brutal post (Ph) in lives lost. Deaths have climb steeply for the past five weeks jumping 40 percent in the past week. This is a clear warning our hospitals are at the breaking point. In all, 153,000 people have sadly died.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Things not looking great in Europe either. Many countries seeing surge in cases, thanks in part to the Delta variant. Some countries like Greece and France tightening restrictions. As of now, the U.K. is set to lift its remaining restrictions on Monday. Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a rosy outlook.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Like I say, is if we are careful and we continue to respect this disease and it's continuing, many studies say it's highly probable that all of the scientists say, all those (Inaudible) on this highly probable that the pandemic is behind us. Very difficult days and weeks ahead as we do with of the Delta variant and there will be sadly, more hospitalizations and more deaths. But with every day that goes by we build higher for more vaccine required immunity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): Well, that's the opposite of what WHO scientist says that the danger is far from over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: The committee has expressed concern that the pandemic has been mischaracterized as coming to an end when it's nowhere near finished.

[03:09:59]

It has also warned about the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that maybe even more challenging to control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): Dr. Peter Drobac is an infectious disease and global health expert at the University of Oxford. He joins me from Oxford, England. Good to see you, doctor.

I want to start with the study that was published in the journal The Lancet, suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic may have caused, as they put it, the most widespread disruption of childhood vaccinations in recent years. Vaccinations overall perhaps as many 17 million children milling them. How concerning is that?

PETER DROBAC, GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, OXFORD SAID BUSINESS SCHOOL: Well, thank you for having me.

It's incredibly concerning. And across the world, of course over the last year and a half we've seen disruption to essential health services be that, you know, cancer screening here in the U.K. or elective surgeries. But across the world essential services like vaccinations have been disrupted.

And what this means of course, is that there is a risk now of only 70 or 75 percent of children are getting their measles vaccinations. That there is real risk of outbreak of this long vaccine preventable diseases. And as you pointed out a moment ago, as the Delta variant takes hold across the world we may be seeing, you know, actually the worst wave globally that we have thus far. And that means another wave of disruption to essential health services, another wave of economic pain, another wave of food insecurity in the global south. It's a very tenuous moment.

HOLMES: It really does feel like for some leaders treating it as a bit of false dawn. I mean, when it comes to the COVID vaccine specifically, the unvaccinated continue to be behind recent surges, and it seems to make up, I think 99 percent of COVID deaths, in many ways unsurprising given the efficacy of the vaccines.

In the United States of Americans wanted to be vaccinated they would be by now. So how they aim to change that landscape especially the politicization?

DROBAC: Yes, despite all the success of vaccination campaigns in places like the U.S., you know, there are still only at about 48 percent of the total population vaccinated. So, for that half of the population that's unvaccinated that's much higher in some states of course we are already seeing a very steep rise in cases.

And remember the Delta variant is not only twice as infectious as the original Wuhan strain but also, you know, twice as likely to cause serious disease. There are a lot of reasons for the vaccine hesitancy, misinformation driven through social media is a massive problem that needs to be combatted. And I think there are also really important and challenging conversations now around vaccine mandates as well. And we are seeing different approaches around the world to that.

HOLMES: Yes. Exactly. And you mentioned the Delta variant, you know, as we know more contagious. But we're hearing perhaps not more deadly than the original virus but that is not cause for comfort, is it, given the original havoc brought by the original.

DROBAC: Well, that's right. It's difficult to estimate truly the case fatality rate. One of the good things of course that our treatments have vastly improved, we are seeing a higher risk of severe disease on unvaccinated people who do get the Delta variant. But the bottom line is that if we see a wave of infections particularly among the unvaccinated, inevitably we are going to see a surge in hospitalizations and a surge in deaths.

You know, in highly vaccinated countries that may not reach some of the levels that we've seen before but still significant. Across the world, you know, we may see the worst phase of this pandemic yet to come.

HOLMES: Yes. And to that point, with COVID spread in unvaccinated countries and regions and we've talked about this before, you got that very realistic chance of new variants emerging which are more deadly and could perhaps evade the vaccines given variant thrive on spread.

DROBAC: That's right. Now the Delta variant very quickly took hold and it's just a measure of how fit it is in competing against other variants. And I think it would be difficult for new variants to outcompete Delta right now.

The risk that we face and particularly with the strategy we're seeing here in the U.K. of having half your population vaccinated and then allowing very high transmission in the other half, the conditions we are seeing right now are actually ideal for the selection of a new variant that might be vaccine resistant.

And that of course would be a really tragic development and something that I think we all need to be cautious about. And it's also a reason that are tremendous moral failure to do more to vaccinate the entire world, and particularly the global south is going to come back to hurt all of us.

HOLMES: Yes. I was just reading today here in the state of Georgia in the United States vaccines going to waste because of vaccine hesitancy while countries around the world just don't have any. It's atrocious.

Dr. Peter Drobac, got to leave it there. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

DROBAC: Thanks.

[03:14:55]

HOLMES: Well, the death toll is climbing in South Africa as the country faces days of violent unrest. We'll head to the city of Durban to find out how residents are coping. That's coming up.

Also, new video of suspected assassins in Haiti just hours after they allegedly gun down the country's president. You are watching CNN Newsroom. We'll be right back.

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HOLMES (on camera): The death toll has climbed to at least 117 after days of unrest and mayhem in South Africa. Officials say the country is seeing some of its worst violence in years. Ten thousand soldiers deployed Thursday morning to help quell widespread looting and vandalism. It all started last week when protests erupted after former President Jacob Zuma surrendered to authorities to serve a 15-month jail term.

All right. Let's get the very latest from CNN's David McKenzie live for us in Durban, South Africa. A worrying time for South Africa. First of all, just bring us up to date on the latest there.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michael, the latest is that it is a lot calmer in last 24 hours. Last night we were driving around Durban, there was still sporadic gunshots people very fearful for their communities and barricades all around the city of ordinary civilians saying that they don't trust the state and they have to do it themselves.

But the scene where I am at right now kinds of tells a story. Behind me you see the burnt-up cars. Next to that you see cars lining up for a very long while trying to get fuel because of fuel shortages here. Now the burnt-up cars where people who were manning roadblocks in this area said they felt unsafe and started stopping people, and in some cases, racially profiling people.

This is largely an Indian neighborhood of South Africa. Racially profiling the people and then torching their cars if they felt they had been looting in this area. It's a powder keg in this country because of the situation and the president is coming down to this area, I think to ease the tension. There is a lot of criticism that the state didn't act quickly enough. Michael?

HOLMES: Yes. I guess it must be extraordinary for South Africans to see soldiers, the military being used in this civilian situation. But why did it take so long to get security forces in place to do the job?

MCKENZIE: I think there is a couple of reasons for that, Michael. And it's a great question. Part of it was just the scale of the looting and unrest in two provinces of the country. Really, they got caught flat-footed and they have admitted as much. So, we were at malls in Johannesburg where there were just two or three police trying to fend off hundreds of looters destroying malls in their neighborhoods.

And once the military came out you did almost immediately get a sense that the situation was calming down. And that's a lot of people have said well, where's the military is. we'll stop this barricade if we see them in force.

[03:20:02]

But it's a very uncomfortable visual for South Africa to have military out of the streets. It really, sort of, speaks to the dark history of this country and that the military was out quelling protest for democracy.

But it is a different time in South Africa now. People are feeling in a state of shock. They are coming together and trying to clean up, donate food, find fuel, coming together as South Africans do. But I do think that it was a very tense and combustible moment that at least at this stage appears to be calming down. Michael?

HOLMES: All right, David, thank you. David McKenzie there for us in Durban, South Africa.

Now nine days after the assassination of Haiti's president authorities there have revealed few details about who was behind it and what the motive was. Eighteen Colombian suspects are now in custody. Some apparently thought they were going to detain the president and turn him over to the U.S. Drug enforcement Administration. The DEA declined to comment on that allegation but Colombia's president now says some of the alleged attackers had a more sinister mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IVAN DUQUE, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA (through translator): Based on everything we know there are people who knew of this murder that was going to take place. On the other hand, it seems that inside that group there were other people with different instructions. But we need to be clear. Regardless of what they know or didn't know what stands up is the involvement of this whole group in the assassination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): And CNN has obtained new video that shows the alleged assassins as they tried to elude capture, this is several hours after the attack on the president.

Our Matt Rivers is in Port-au-Prince with that.

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Recently, we became aware of a clip of a livestream that was taken the day that President Jovenel Moise was assassinated. Several hours after he was assassinated this clip has made the rounds in Haiti quite a bit, but it hasn't been given a lot of attention internationally especially by international media. And what it shows really is in the lightning in terms of exactly what happened in the hours after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERS (voice over): Just hours after Haiti's president was killed, this video livestreamed by a local journalist shows some of the men accused of killing him. Here you can see two of the Colombian mercenaries that officials say were part of the hit squad. The first man is holding a rifle and signals for the journalist to stop. A second then stands up rifle glinting in the sun. They tell him to stop recording.

At this point Haitian security forces had trapped the two dozen or so alleged assassins along this stretch of road. At the bottom, a roadblock, then the look outs with the majority of the suspects hold up in this building.

Moving up the street and passed the vehicles the suspect had abandoned on the road the camera reaches that building. As it pans you can see two things. Several black clad mercenaries and this man, one of the two Haitian Americans accused of taking part in the crime. At this moment, he is actually giving a live interview to Haiti Radio Mega, saying they didn't kill the president.

"Someone died but we didn't do it," he says. "People inside the president's house started to shoot at us and we fired back to defend ourselves."

He then says most of the group believed they were going to arrest the president, not kill him. The journalist who filmed them, Muhayko Shanashal (Ph) who didn't want to show his face said the group didn't seem to have a plan.

He says they knew they were in a tough position and knew the president was dead. They were confused not sure whether to turn themselves in or fight.

Ultimately, some chose to fight and a fierce shootout with police left at least three Colombians dead. The easiest way to tell who actually killed the president would be to see the footage from CCTV cameras inside the presidential residence that a source tells us captured most of what happened but authorities have refused to release it or even describe its contents.

We know that there is CCTV footage from the presidential residence the night of the assassination. Why not release that footage to the public? Would that not answer so many outstanding questions about who did this?

LEON CHARLES, CHIEF, HAITI NATIONAL POLICE: So, we cannot reveal to the public anything, any more information until the investigators allow us to do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERS: Now we also got a chance to ask the chief of the Haitian national police about the fact that we haven't heard from any of the alleged suspects in this case that are detained at this moment including the Colombians that are currently detained in Haiti.

[03:24:58]

And I asked him when we'll be able to hear from those detainees. What have they've been charged with? Do they have legal representation? He didn't answer really any of those questions and because of that our questions will remain about exactly what the motive behind all of this actually is. Matt Rivers, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

HOLMES: The U.S. and Germany are moving to put four rocky years during the Trump presidency behind them. President Joe Biden welcoming Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House on Thursday. There, they discussed climate change, coronavirus vaccines, Russian cyber hackers, and the situation in Ukraine.

But one disagreement was the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline which will send Russian gas directly to Germany. The U.S. believes the pipeline gives Moscow new leverage against its neighbors including Ukraine. Mrs. Merkel responding to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERKEL (through translator): We have different views on what this project entails but I want to make it very clear. Our understanding was and remains that Ukraine remains a transit country for natural gas, that Ukraine has a right like any country to territorial sovereignty. That is why we are also engaged in the Minsk process and that we also act actively if Russia does not honor Ukraine's right to transit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (on camera): Mr. Merkel is ending her more than 15-year tenure as chancellor in about three months from now.

All right. We'll take a quick break here on CNN Newsroom. When we come back, a terrible toll in Indonesia where the number of infants and children contracting COVID-19 has almost tripled since May. CNN speaks to some of the families.

Also, one week away from the Olympics and COVID cases in Japan are surging to numbers not seen since January. We are live with Will Ripley in Tokyo, next.

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HOLMES (on camera): Welcome back. Indonesia is in the middle of what one official call a worst-case scenario epidemic. COVID-19 cases there skyrocketing. And what's worse, infants, children, and teens are dying by the hundreds as the country's medical system buckles under a devastating wave of the Delta variant.

CNN's Atika Shubert spoke to families who have lost their children and the doctors who are trying to save them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): After days of runny nose and fever Baby Safran (Ph) struggle to breathe. His mother Karunia Sekar Kinanti tells me she rushed him to the hospital.

[03:29:59] "I was shocked what the doctor told me," she says. "COVID had already spread to his lungs. His right lung was completely infected. And the doctor told me to prepare for the worst, to prepare burial arrangements." What mother is ready to hear that, she ask?

The number of children dying from COVID in Indonesia has quadrupled in recent weeks, according to the country's pediatric society. More than 550 have died since the start of a pandemic, and 150 of those are in the last two weeks, most of them had been under the age of five. Doctors don't know exactly why, but attribute the quick spread to the more contagious delta variants.

Many hospitals here are already overwhelmed and running dangerously low on supplies, unable to provide specialist care that children need. Many parents here falsely believed children suffer only mild COVID symptoms, ignoring protocols, and refusing to get their children tested, said Indonesia's top pediatrician. He warns parents need to test more frequently.

AMAN B. PULUNGAN, PRESIDENT, INDONESIAN SOCIETY OD PEDIATRICIANS: When they realized this is COVID, the condition already bad. And when they take the children to the hospital, sometimes, we do not have enough time to save this children. This is happening a lot.

SHUBERT (voice over): On the island of Java, COVID deaths are outpacing coffin makers. Excavators frantically dig more burial plots. Here, many live a crowded hand to mouth existence, isolating and working from home is just not possible.

Delivery driver Aris Suharyanto lost both his wife and new born baby to COVID, unable even to attend their funeral. Though he never had symptoms, his voice cracks with emotion as he wonders if he brought COVID into the home.

Even now, when I think of my wife, I still get sad, he says. The children are already carrying on as normal, but me, I still cry on my own, and I do regret things, but I just never imagine that this could happen, he says.

Vaccines are the only way out of the crisis for now, and over the weekend, a fresh batch of Moderna vaccines arrived, donated by the U.S. 3 million doses, but that is a drop in the bucket for what the country needs, and young children are not yet eligible for the vaccine regardless. Karunya has already lost her own mother to COVID. Now, she is determined that she and baby Zafran will defeat the virus.

You are very strong.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

SHUBERT: What's important is that I keep healthy, she says because if I get sick, everything falls apart. There won't be anyone able to take care of the kids. Recovering and building immunity to a disease that's endangering Indonesia's children. Atika Shubert, for CNN. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, the biggest sporting event in the world is now just one week away, despite being postponed for a year, the coronavirus looms large over the summer Olympics. It will be no spectators in Tokyo, where daily cases are now, at a six month high. And now a handful of athletes have opted out, altogether.

The conditions, have let many calling for the games to be canceled, and more protests are expected, later today, as Olympic organizers visit Hiroshima. CNN's Will Ripley, joins me now live from Tokyo. I mean, I guess it seems like it's almost no one is happy about these games. Some are upset they are happening at all, other say the protective measures are going way too far.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Yes, those protests in Hiroshima, Michael, particularly stinging language from survivors of the atomic bomb who said that Thomas Bach, the IOC president, visiting there today, is an insult to them, that he is going at this time.

That larger protests playing here in Tokyo, pretty much something up the mood of many Japanese people who feel that the Olympics has become an (inaudible) or I should say not inexpensive, but very expensive and very inconvenient boondoggle. But for some people, it actually is far more personal than just inconvenience.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY (voice over): Japan's Olympic stadium, a symbol of the troubled Tokyo games, and for Kohi Gino, a reminder of the home he lost. Gino got an eviction notice in 2013, when Japan won the 2020 bid. A year of national triumph, and personal loss. Around 200 families, mostly senior citizens, evicted. Their housing complex demolished five years ago, replaced by Tokyo's multibillion dollar 68,000 seat showpiece, a bitter pill made worse because it happened before.

[03:35:05]

UNKNOWN: Around there.

RIPLEY: That stop sign there?

UNKNOWN: Yes.

RIPLEY: He points to a stop sign, where his childhood home used to be. It was also torn down, to build Tokyo's 1964 Olympic stadium, rising from the ashes of World War II.

The first Olympics was during the reconstruction period, we were happy to cooperate, he says, but this time, we were treated without compassion. Gino thought it was too soon for Japan to host another Olympics, and that was before the pandemic. The stadium that cost him his home will sit virtually empty during the

games. The first spectator ban in Olympic history. Tokyo is under a fourth COVID-19 state of emergency.

Cases surging, vaccination rates low. A recent poll shows nearly 8 in 10 Japanese don't want the games to go ahead. Kazunori Takishima (ph) calls it mass hysteria, a self-described super fan, he has been to every Olympics since Torino in 2006. He says the decision to ban spectators is based on emotion, not science. Takishima has 197 reasons to be angry. That's how many tickets he bought for Tokyo 2020, spending nearly $40,000. The spectator ban, crushing his dream of a world record for attendance.

To be honest, all I have now is sadness, he says.

It looks like a storm coming.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, it looks very sad.

RIPLEY: As Takishima talks about his heartbreak, the skies open up.

It's raining right now, he says, the god of the Olympics is angry, and I think it's a sign that it's not too late to allow spectators.

And Olympic dream about as distant as a sunny day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY (on camera): Of course, it is actually a sunny day here in Tokyo, but that dream of spectators in the stands seems to be getting farther, and farther away. Given that this city is recording its highest daily case count since January. And the trend has been going up for nearly a month now.

The number of people testing positive for COVID, as they come into the country remains relative low. There was one athlete who tested positive, it was just reported today, and is now in hospital. But, the majority are testing negative. Most athletes had been vaccinated. The real surge in cases is happening inside Japan. Which means it's actually the visitors coming in if they are not vaccinated would pose more of a risk by interacting with Japanese, and Japanese interacting with vaccinated athletes, and journalists. Michael?

HOLMES: Yeah. Locally driven. Good to see you, Will. Thanks for that, Will Ripley, in Tokyo there.

Now Lebanon's political paralysis, deepens as the Prime Minister designate steps down, and the first reaction on the streets is violence. We will take you live to our Ben Wedeman in Beirut.

And the latest on efforts to evacuate Afghan allies who provided crucial help to the U.S. during the war, but are now facing a deadly threat. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:40:00]

HOLMES: Welcome back. Protesters in Lebanon, say that they have little hope left, as they clashed with police across the nation on Thursday. They shut down major highways, and ransacked some businesses. That's according to a national news agency. The violence breaking out after the Prime Minister designate signed the Hariri resign, even as the economy continues to crumble. He had been trying to patch together a new government for months, but Lebanon's factional leadership is repeatedly stymieing those efforts. Hariri is now given up, after Lebanon's president rejected his latest cabinet lineup.

Now the resignation is likely to make Lebanon's political and economic crisis even worse for more. Ben Wedeman, joins me now from Beirut. So, Hariri is stepping down as Prime Minister designate. Is it fair to say Lebanon's leaders just can't resolve the crisis they, themselves, have caused? And what does it mean for Lebanon?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, it's fair to say that Michael, but essentially what really comes across, by the fact that Lebanon has not had a proper government since the 10th of August, last year, as is the political class feels no urgency to put their differences aside and try to address this country's mounting problems.

In fact, you know, I was looking, checking just now the Lebanese lira, the local currency which has lost 90 percent of its value, more than 90 percent of its value in the last 18 month. In the last 24 hours has fallen by 16 percent. And it is important that when we are talking about the lira, this is a country that imports almost everything.

And therefore, when the local currency falls, this has an immediate impact on people's ability to get by to buy the essentials of life, which are becoming increasingly difficult to get. Now, we have heard reaction from U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, who tweeted that he is disappointed and disheartened by the inability of Lebanon's political class to form a new government.

And the French foreign ministry has put out a statement saying, that there is an absolute urgency to get out of this organized and unacceptable obstruction and have parliamentary consultations to put forward a new candidate, because it's going to be very difficult to find anybody, foolhardy enough to try to lead this country out of this mess.

The feeling is that the political elite is so far removed from reality. So enriched by corruption and mismanagement of this country. They simply are in different to the mounting suffering of people here. And what we saw there were clashes between protesters and the army last night. Many parts of Beirut and other areas. The protesters were smashing up nightclubs. So, the anger is mounting and the solution are still nowhere to be found. Michael?

HOLMES: What is the outlook? I mean, you live there, you know the country well. And I can't imagine the lira devaluing that much. And the prices must just be out of control. What does it mean for day to day life for the Lebanese people? WEDEMAN: Day-to-day life is getting ever more difficult for people

here. People here, who do not have the wherewithal to get by. People who had dollars in the banks, but no longer have access to them, because of controls imposed by the banks themselves. The government still insist that the official exchange rate is 1500, whereas as of just a few minutes ago, it is 22,600 to the dollar.

Life is getting incredibly difficult. For instance, in the building I live in, which used to have a generator, but no longer. We get, perhaps, two hours of electricity a day. It is hard to find fuel for your car, and the price of that is going up. The price of bread has gone up seven times in the last 12 months.

[03:44:57]

It is very difficult to find baby formula, if you have children. Many people are contacting their relatives abroad, begging them to send money, those who have relatives, traveling to Lebanon. They are telling them to get a long list of medicines that are no longer available in the pharmacies. It is almost every aspect of daily life is becoming ever more difficult. And I stress, again, the political class seems utterly indifferent to the mounting difficulty of day-to- day life in Lebanon. Michael?

HOLMES: Hardly surprising to see protests in that case. It just sounds like a dreadful existence. Ben, good to see you there, thanks. Ben Wedeman in Beirut for us.

Now, next week, the Biden administration will begin they say, relocating thousands of Afghan interpreters and translators who helped the U.S. during the almost 20-year war. Many of them now fear for their safety as the Taliban gained ground and American forces drawdown. Lawmakers and advocates have sharply criticize the White House for not doing enough soon enough to protect these crucial allies and their families who may now be in danger. The military drawdown is expected to be finished by the end of next month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Flights out of Afghanistan for SAV applicants who are already in the pipeline will begin in the last week of July and will continue. And our objective is to get into the (inaudible) who are eligible relocated out of the country in advance of their withdrawal of troops at the end of August.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now my guest is Matt Zeller. He is the cofounder of the nonprofit, no one left behind, a group that advocates and helps translators from Afghanistan and Iraq. He was an officer in the U.S. Army who served in Afghanistan where his own life was saved by his interpreter. Good to see you again.

Man, I guess finally, finally, some movement from the administration on the issue, but I've really been struck by the lack of detail on the numbers, the logistics as the Taliban take more of the country every day. Do you worry it's a little too late and crucially too little but too late?

MATT ZELLER, CO-FOUNDER OF THE NONPROFIT, NO ONE LEFT BEHIND (on camera): Yes, absolutely. You know, the administration has just been completely lacking on the key details of who gets to go in this evacuation, where do they get to go, and when do they get to leave. The other thing that we all are wondering is the advocates who have been pushing for this evacuation is why are we doing it now at the 11th hour. Why we didn't we do it, you know, over the last four or five months when we still had forces in Afghanistan.

The association of wartime allies recently surveyed the Afghan special immigrant visa applicant's population in Afghanistan. And what they found was that over 49 percent of our Afghan wartime allies currently live outside of the city of Kabul. The Biden administration thus far seems to only have a plan to evacuate people who are in Kabul. So, what are we going to do about, you know, the other 40,000 people or so that are not in Kabul? There doesn't seem to be a plan for them.

HOLMES: Yeah. How will they even get to a rally point? I mean, this is part of the problem. Too late. When it comes to this concern over vetting, which you know, a lot of people on the right in particular keep saying they need to be vetted and so on.

I mean, someone can gets lost in all the bureaucratic side of this, is all of these people have been vetted thoroughly enough to do the jobs they did. I know when I went -- what I went through in order to embed with the military and get on bases, these people have already been through a ton of vetting or they wouldn't been doing the job.

ZELLER: Yeah, it's not like anybody just walked up and said, hi, I speak English, like, here is a weapon, go and patrol. These people had to be polygraph as a terms of their employment every six months. Their emails were monitored. Their phone calls were monitored. They were given privileged to access to some of the most sensitive U.S. military personnel and equipment.

We have a gentlemen that we interviewed for our podcast War Time Allies, he's named is Sharif. He was the personal interpreter for the United States navy seals and U.S. Army Special Forces for over seven years. This guy can't get a visa right now. He's had his visa application already denied once. The Taliban have killed his mom, his dad, all of his siblings. He's afraid he's going to get left behind.

And he's a prime example of somebody who clearly passed all of the vetting to work alongside us, but somehow can't seem to get through the vetting that we now require to get to safety. It's just atrocious.

HOLMES: What do you make of the apparent reticence of the administration to use the U.S. territory of Guam as a stage? I know this is something that you'd been pushing. I mean, the president seemed to indicate the other day that the law didn't allow it. But that's completely untrue, isn't it?

ZELLER: It is completely untrue. He has the same authorities as President Ford did in 1975 and President Clinton did in 1996 when we evacuated over 130,000 of our Vietnamese allies, and over 6,600 of our Kurdish allies, respectively, in those two different years to Guam.

[03:50:15]

President Biden has the same authority as those two presidents did. I think honestly, this White House really seems to be afraid that any evacuation could end up being bad politically. They are afraid of a similar scenario that befell the United States at the end of the Vietnam War, where it was a chaotic withdrawal that all of the sudden had to happen hastily in the last week of the country of South Vietnam.

But I got to be honest, I fear that in their hesitancy and their drive to prevent that, they have actually guaranteed it's going to happen. What's needed now is bold action. We need to save these people.

HOLMES: Absolutely. Again, and it wouldn't be chaotic if they had started a few months ago like what they should have.

ZELLER: Correct.

HOLMES: That's for sure. And I want to ask you this because it's important. We've talk about this before. But speak to the damage to U.S. interests if it doesn't act on this issue. I mean, who in some future conflict is going to want to go near working for Americans in a foreign land?

ZELDIN: That's a great point. The so wet of all of this is that if we don't save these people now, Americans are going to die in far greater numbers in the future wars, because we won't have those necessary local partners serving shoulder to shoulder alongside with us. And I would know, I shouldn't be alive. The only reason I am is because my Afghan interpreter was standing next to me at a battle 13 years ago. And he'd be the first, to tell you, if we weren't the type of people that he thought kept their word and their promise, he wouldn't be standing next to me.

HOLMES: I always end these conversations with you and others by saying this is such an important issue. The U.S. has dropped the ball on this, but I also always say, let's not forget Iraq.

ZELLER: Yes. We cannot.

HOLMES: There's a bunch of Iraqi translators and others there who have also been left behind. Matt, we will get you back and talk more about this. Matt Zeller, thanks so much.

ZELLER: Thanks, brother. I really appreciate it.

HOLMES: And we will be back after a short break. You are watching CNN.

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HOLMES: For weeks now, American tourist had been allowed back in Europe. The Europeans want to know when exactly will the U.S. return the favor. President Joe Biden told Germany's Angela Merkel he will have an answer soon, when she brought up the issue on Thursday in the Oval Office. He even says he will answer it, quote, in the next several days.

The U.S. currently has strict travel restrictions which was put in place under the Trump administration much of the European continent affected along with the U.K.

Europe is slowly rolling back whatever COVID restrictions might be left, but the travel rebound so many beach destinations were hoping for has not materialized, at least not yet. CNN's Richard Quest went to Spain's southern coast to see firsthand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR (voice over): It is good to see the beaches along the (inaudible), getting busier as more countries are opening up. And if we think about the beach economy, we will get a really good idea of the damage that's been done, and how things are now getting better.

[03:54:58]

It costs only 5 euros, about $6, to rent a beach chair here in Torremolinos. But as you can see, most of the lounges are empty. The locals and the Spanish tourists, they tend to bring their own chairs and umbrellas. And the higher spending tourists of northern Europe, they are not here yet.

Put it all together, it's really simple. And the economy of the beach, these empty chairs mean hardship. A holiday isn't a holiday without an ice cream. And the beauty and the best part is choosing which one.

I like those, but I haven't have those and so, but the man has to sell me on ice cream to make money for my (inaudible). It may only cost 3 or 4 Euros maximum, but that's part of the profit center of a place like this to stay in business.

UNKNOWN: Here it is, sir.

QUEST: Thank you very much.

The cost of a beach chair or an ice cream, relatively small amounts that soon add up. Torremolinos, I hate it when it does that. When the best all falls on the floor. Grilled sardines on the beach, a local specialty. The restaurants here, in fact along the coast have been badly hit. Many won't stay in business as a result of COVID, but thankfully this one is still going.

UNKNOWN: Here are your sardines.

QUEST: Sardines.

UNKNOWN: You take the head and the tail.

QUEST: Grab it by the tail and the head and dig in. Keep it simple, he said. And that's the way to think about tourism. Forget this idea of global tourism being 10 percent of the world employment. Instead, remember, its beach chairs, ice creams, and yes, sardines grilled. Keep it simple, and remember the men and women who make all this possible. He was right. Use your fingers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: He gets all the good gigs. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. I'm Michael Holmes. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @holmesCNN. I'll be back with another hour of CNN Newsroom in just a moment.

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