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Stun Grenades Used as Crowd Surges Outside Airport; U.S. Military: 7,000 People Evacuated in Past Five Days; NATO Foreign Ministers to Hold Emergency Meeting; Aid Trickles in Days after Devastating Haiti Tremor; Hong Kong Allows Nicole Kidman to Skip Quarantine; Taliban's Unlikely Partnership with China; First Recorded Rain at Summit of Greenland's Ice Sheet. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired August 20, 2021 - 00:00   ET

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

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: -- protests, many celebrating Independence Day, waving the old flag of the fallen national government. The Taliban responded with gunfire. Reports some demonstrators were killed.

[00:00:11]

And the spoils of war. The U.S. boasted Afghan national forces were equipped with only the best American weapons and military hardware, which is now in the hands of Taliban fighters.

Afghanistan marked Independence Day on Thursday, a celebration dating back to the end of British rule more than a century ago. But this year, in just a few places, the demand for independence seemed directed at the Taliban.

Notably, demonstrators marched in the capital, Kabul, openly carrying the flag of the now overthrown Afghan government. The response from this self-proclaimed more moderate Taliban? They used whips to disperse the crowd. And record reports claim a number of protesters were shot and killed.

The harsh response to what was a peaceful demonstration explains why Kabul airport continues to be a focal point of desperation and chaos. Outside the security perimeter, the number of Afghans hoping to leave now number in the thousands and growing by the day.

And the images of children being handed from the crowd to U.S. soldiers on the other side says so much about the fears so many had for the future they cannot leave. And here's the sad reality of this U.S. evacuation. Those giant C-17 cargo planes and others are leaving Kabul with empty seats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: That doesn't mean that there aren't going to be -- that doesn't mean that you can -- just because you have 5,000 seats, that you can automatically fill 5,000 seats every day.

Now, that's what we want to get to. We want to -- as the secretary said, we want to move as many people as fast and as safely as possible. But there's lots of steps in the process. Not all of them do we control. And we understand.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The U.S. president will speak publicly a few hours from now from the White House, about the process in Afghanistan, as well as the slow evacuation of American citizens and Afghan allies.

Over the past few days, the U.S. military has vacated just 70,000 people. The Pentagon is aiming for a daily airlift of 9,000 passengers. Right now, it's around 2,000.

And the reason why those numbers are so low, because the world's most powerful nation, with the best equipped, best trained military, is being stymied by the Taliban. They are the ones who decide how many are allowed into the airport and how many are turned away.

Here's CNN's Nic Paton Walsh.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's America's final act in Afghanistan, in its longest war, and it involves getting many Americans and many Afghans loyal to America to run a kind of gauntlet from the center of Kabul to the main airport, where they hope to get flights to the United States, maybe elsewhere, and start a new life in safety.

But for that, they must go through an extraordinary challenge. What should be the easiest drive in Kabul is the reason the city is on edge.

Heading up the main airport road since Monday when I drove it, and you run into the Taliban. Then, they were beating people back, perhaps to clear the civilian runway crowded with desperate people then.

By Wednesday, it had gotten worse when they clearly stopped people from using their escape to America and accosting CNN. Taliban control that road, the anchors at the end of it, and the road to the left.

Now many are trying to get in from the north road. But that's led to devastating scenes at the north gate.

When I was there, the crush was dangerous, but the numbers have just grown further still. At night, stun grenades had been thrown. When huge crowds still brave roaming Taliban in the dark, in the hopes the numbers at the gate had dropped.

And in the day, it got nastier still. There were moments of hope, but they carry risk. When people see one success, they might want to try the same thing en masse. Later in the day, U.S. troops had to repel the crowd.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone get back!

WALSH: At the gates, what seemed to be British soldiers struggled to push back crowds, and huge queues have formed, blocking the streets. America has a numbers problem getting enough people on. But also claiming huge progress while not really knowing how many priority cases they're really seeking.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many Americans -- American citizens remain in Afghanistan?

KIRBY: I don't know.

NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: What we do know is that 6,000 people are now at the airport. Six thousand people have been able to make it, have made it through the processing. And as of a couple of hours ago, we have received only a small handful of reports otherwise for American citizens.

WALSH: Inside it is messy, but there are flights. Often, many of them where lives are walked onto C-17s and changed forever when the doors close.

The story of the airport. The last place America controls in Afghanistan, where the chaos outside the wire means the promises inside fall perilously short.

[00:05:11]

(on camera): Now, the U.S. talked of lofty goals of trying to get 5 to 9,000 people flown out every day. And they claimed that they have now, on the airports, 6,000 people processed and ready to get on aircraft. That would be extraordinary if that had, indeed, occurred. But they do also admit, as you heard there, that they don't know how many Americans are out there in Afghanistan, hoping to get out. Extraordinary not to have that basic number there to quantify how big a task is ahead.

And so, for the days ahead, there are concerns. But once again in Afghanistan, the reality of the ground, those terrifying scenes outside the airport, even today, are simply not matched or recognized by the statements for American officials.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Some Afghans are boarding those evacuation planes with no idea of their final destination or what will happen when they arrive. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh joins us now , live from Istanbul with the very latest on the evacuation.

So we know these flights are not exactly the problem when it comes to the number of flights. It's just actually getting those seats filled. And that then comes down to these negotiations with the Taliban. So do we know what the center of that might be with regards to the evacuation?

I think we have some technical issues there with Jomana Karadsheh there in Istanbul. We'll try and establish communication and get back to her in a moment. Jomana will be with us in a moment. To Washington now and Nadia Hashimi, an Afghan-American novelist who

also sits on the U.S. Afghan Women's Council.

Nadia, thank you for being with us. We appreciate your time.

NADIA HASHIMI, MEMBER, U.S. AFGHAN WOMEN'S COUNCIL: Thank you for having me.

Nadia, every passing day there seems to be new reports that this really is the old Taliban, not the new one. "The Wall Street Journal" reporting Taliban government dragged a female doctor out of her taxi, whipped her for filming the chaos surrounding the evacuations at the Kabul airport."

The "Journal" also notes in areas which fell early, far beyond Kabul, "Some commanders demanded families hand over unmarried women to marry their fighters."

"The Washington Post" notes that militants in the north have told some female employees of the company's largest bank to leave and go home.

And there's also now this sort of collective impact from each atrocity as word gets out, and we're seeing that women in Afghanistan are fading from public view. There are some exceptions.

But for the most part, they're afraid to leave their homes or to speak out. And this is happening incredibly quickly. What is the overall impact from this?

HASHIMI: It's chilling. The population in general, you know, a lot of the younger people in Afghanistan have inherited these stories of what it was like between '96 and '01, to live under the Taliban's strict and brutal ideology.

And then you've got a generation that's grown up living life in a country that's been rocked by violence, led by this insurgent group. And so, you know, this is a terrorist group in which terrorist groups are terrorized. And that's what they've done. They've terrorized the -- the communities to let them know that there's a danger.

Outwardly, in the past year and a half or so, the Taliban have promised to the world that they are evolved, they are reformed, they are 2.0.

And few people within the Afghan community have ever trusted them or taken them at their word, because there is that memory. And because we've not really seen anything to prove that they are involved, there are no women in the Taliban representation. And they've not been able to articulate any specific rights that women would hold under their regime.

VAUSE: And just as a reminder of what life was like under the first Taliban regime, when women were prohibited from working or going to school. Restrictions on behavior, dress, and movement were enforced by the morality police, who drove in pickup trucks, publicly humiliating and whipping women who did not adhere to their rules. In 1996, a woman in Kabul had the end of her thumb cut off for wearing

nail polish. That's according to Amnesty International. Women accused of adultery were stoned to death.

And you mentioned this. There was this whole generation of young women who have grown up knowing nothing about that, and perhaps believing they would not experience what their mothers and their grandmothers went through. And it seems they're the ones who will find life under the Taliban incredibly difficult.

HASHIMI: It's very true. And you know, this is a generation that has fought so hard to advance the cause of women, but also just to advance the society. They're entrepreneurs. They are judges. They are journalists. They are educators. They are artists.

And in all of these fields, they have made tremendous gains. And when you hear about women, as I'm hearing from women who are in Kabul who are living through this right now, there's a feeling of imprisonment. There is a general fear, even down to the younger generation.

Girls as young as -- as young as 12 are now concerned about their safety, venturing out into the streets, because they've got a group there that has a whole different set of beliefs about what they are entitled to.

VAUSE: Yes. They are entitled to marry girls of 12 years of age, right?

[0010:07]

HASHIMI: That's their belief. But again, you know, they don't really articulate very much. So it's hard to know.

On one hand, they swear that some things will not come to pass, but look at all the reports that we are getting at this time. And this is the honeymoon period. This is when the Taliban understands that the world's eyes, the world's attention is on Kabul specifically.

But what's happening in the province is very telling. I think they understand and are banking on the world's attention span being narrow and are banned with being small. And they know that we will not be able to keep our eyes on them.

Things will change. A month, six months from now, I think the situation may be a lot worse for women in Afghanistan.

VAUSE: Yes. Well, on Thursday, Kabul Airport seems to be some real acts of desperation. On a number of cases, young children were lifted up over a security wall and handed over to U.S. soldiers. One video, it appeared that there was a little girl who was being handed over.

Women also climbed over this wall, as well. And this comes a day after the U.S. president said this to ABC News. Listen to Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There are Afghan women

outside the gate. I told them, get them on the planes. Get them out. Get them out. Get their families out if you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: On the one hand, that seems positive that the U.S. will evacuate women desperate to leave. That is, if they can get to the airport and get handed over, you know, a security barrier to the hands of the U.S. soldiers. It seems kind of an everyone for themselves approach.

HASHIMI: The whole situation, the entire rollout has been a travesty, unfortunately. People getting to the airport, that's a huge security concern. We've gotten reports from people very close to us, talking about the Taliban, shooting at people who are on their way to the airport. They're really trying to deter people away from the airport.

The situation within the airport is also rather chaotic. There are limited resources. People don't know where to go. People with documents, I'm hearing, are being turned away.

And so, you know, all of this is really creating a climate of confusion, of chaos, and one that really looks -- looks truly negatively for the American withdrawal.

Because it's one thing to say that there's going to be a military withdrawal from the country. But this particular moment, there is so much that we could be doing to save people who worked alongside Americans. People to whom we made promises, looking them in the eye and making these promises that we would maintain their safety. And at this critical moment, it's absolute chaos.

VAUSE: Nadia Hashimi, I cannot imagine what it must be like, watching from afar as all this evolves. These must be very difficult days for you. So thank you for being with us.

HASHIMI: Thank you, John.

VAUSE: Let's go back to CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, live in Istanbul. And Jomana, we just heard about these evacuations, and the fact that they are trying to ramp up the number of people into the airport, because it's not a matter of having the number of flights. It's the number of passengers. That then means that the U.S. is in a situation where they're forced to negotiate directly with the Taliban to make that happen.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And they have been negotiating, John. According to U.S. officials, the U.S. military, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan has been in constant contact with the Taliban to try and facilitate the airport operation that has been on going over the past five days or so.

But, you know, according to some U.S. Officials, they say one of the biggest challenges is that there isn't -- they're concerned about the, you know, when it comes to the command, the structure of the Taliban, talking to different people. It's not very clear to them, right now. This is pretty much uncharted territory right now for the U.S.

But no matter how you look at it, John, it has been chaotic. It has been confusing and, as your guest was just saying on so many different levels. It's not just about talking to the Taliban, about getting people through -- getting them to the airport. Every single step of this process has been catastrophic, by all accounts.

You know, you've got our Clarissa Ward on the ground, her reporting as we have seen. It is a very dangerous and difficult journey for Afghans who are trying to reach the airport. You've got several different layers of security parameters, whether it is getting through Taliban checkpoints, you know. And as we heard there, a lot of reports of harassment, people being beaten up, people not being allowed to get through.

And then they get to the airport. You've got these chaotic crowds, where people are desperately trying to push their way through. You've got Afghan special security forces they need to get through to, you know, look through their documents, allow them in. You've got the U.S. military. You've got others. And then you've got the ability to process people to get them through.

So, I mean, there are so many different layers of this chaos and confusion. And the messaging coming from Washington, they're constantly trying to reassure people, as we've heard yesterday, whether it's from the State Department or the Pentagon, that they are working through this, that they are going to get to the point where they're able to evacuate that number that they aim to get out of the country on a daily basis, of 5 to 9,000 people, saying they've got the capacity to do this.

[00:15:19]

What they cannot do, John, is get people to the airport. We have heard this from the most senior of U.S. officials, say they don't have the capabilities to get people safely to the airport.

We heard from the State Department yesterday, saying that, you know, people, American citizens, those who worked with the U.S., a segment of the special immigrant visa applications, if you've gotten emails, that you are leaving the country. If you've got notification about a flight, perhaps they're advising people to travel overnight to get to the airports.

So we're going to have to wait and see if there's going to be anything different. Day five of this chaos and absolute desperation, John. What says it all are those images that you are discussing just now with your guest, about people handing over babies over the barbed wire. I mean, this is -- these are people who are so desperate to get out of the country, no matter where they get to. Just get out of there right now.

VAUSE: Something which is unusual, what we're seeing around Afghanistan, these sort of anti-Taliban protests, which are springing up. To be fair, they are small, I guess, relatively speaking, and in just a small number of places. But they are happening. And that would seem to be at least the early sort of shoots, if you like, of some kind of opposition or resistance to the Taliban. Is that how it's being seen?

KARADSHEH: Well, look, John, it does seem we have gotten the reports over the past couple of days or so. Thursday was the anniversary, where it's Afghanistan's Independence Day from the British back in 1919. So it was a day where, you know, nationalistic feelings were high. We saw people take to the streets in a number of places, including the capital of Kabul, where they were carrying the Afghan flag.

There were reports that they were taking down Taliban, the black and white flag. And, you know, as we've heard from eyewitnesses on the ground, the Taliban was shooting in the air to disperse the crowd. We don't know if there were any casualties.

But a real act of defiance there.

And, you know, we also heard from the southeastern city of Khost, where the Taliban declared an indefinite curfew there after protests also erupted against the Taliban there.

There were also reports coming from Jalalabad, where -- reports of people being beaten up, again, after these anti-Taliban protests.

I mean, the group has been really trying to project this image of a changed Taliban, a more tolerant, more inclusive group. And, you know, there's been a lot of skepticism that that's what's going to happen. And we're starting to see the signs of that. This little tolerance for any sort of dissent or disagreement with the group.

So we're going to have to wait and see what happens in the coming days.

But, you know, we've heard, John from activists, people on the ground. Men and women, who say, you know what? They're not leaving the country. They're going to stay there. They're going to continue with their activism. They're going to continue to protest, to try and preserve any of their hard-won gains over the past 20 years or so.

It is going to be, of course, a very, very dangerous task for those who decide to do that. And we'll have to wait and see what happens in the coming days and weeks -- John.

VAUSE: Yes. The Taliban's tolerance is growing shorter by the day, it seems. Jomana Karadsheh in Istanbul, thank you.

An emergency meeting of NATO foreign minister will begin in a few hours from now, just the latest in a flurry of international diplomacy sparked by concern for Afghanistan's future.

The overall consensus right now, though, is that far more needs to be done to better coordinate evacuation efforts. CNN's Melissa Bell reports now from Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A dire warning from Europe's top diplomat about the dire situation around Kabul Airport. Josep Borrell described it as catastrophic, with some 300 Afghan nationals who've helped European delegations along the years unable to get into the airport and, therefore, onto the aircraft that might bring them back to the safety of Europe.

Josep Borrell also warning, however, that Europe would simply not be able to take all Afghans out of the country.

It comes as the G-7 foreign ministers met today virtually ahead of a G-7 meeting next week that is being held to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan. They called on the Taliban to respect their commitments to protect civilians but also to allow the safe passage of those who needed to get there to Kabul Airport.

[00:20:08]

One of those foreign ministers, Dominic Raab, the British foreign secretary, now in trouble in the United Kingdom. The British press calling for his resignation. He was on holiday as the catastrophe unfolded last week.

It was a junior foreign minister who made contact with his Afghan counterpart, the British press says leading to the delay of the evacuation of British nationals and those Afghans who'd helped them.

The longer-term problem for Europeans is very much what it will mean for migration. Beyond the immediate question of how to get European nationals and those who helped them out, what happens over the coming weeks and months, with 18 million Afghans understood to be in need of humanitarian aid. That's according to the United Nations.

The European Union is still reeling from the migrant crisis of 2015. The political consequences of that continue to be felt in so many European countries. Six years on from the 2015 migrant crisis, a common coordinated policy for how to arrange for the safe arrival of migrants and fairly distribute them around the European Union has yet to be found, even as a fresh migrant crisis looms.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Turkey's president is calling on European nations to take responsibility for those fleeing Afghanistan. Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Europe of, quote, "turning its back on human values" by closing national borders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, TURKISH PRESIDENT (through translator): Turkey does not have a duty, responsibility, or obligation to be Europe's refugee warehouse. Once we strongly close our borders and send the current irregular migrants home, it's up to them to decide where they will go. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Turkey currently hosts around 5 million foreign nationals, including 300,000 from Afghanistan.

Well, humanitarian aid finally starting to make its way to earthquake survivors in Haiti. But as you will see, it's far from enough and nowhere near fast enough.

Plus, actress Nicole Kidman sparking outrage as she skips Hong Kong's tough quarantines. Local officials say she's an exception.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. Aid is slowly making its way into remote towns and villages almost a week now after a devastating earthquake in Haiti, but it's still far from enough.

Hospitals in the affected areas are still overwhelmed. There are far more patients than they can treat. Hundreds of thousands of people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Here's CNN's Matt Rivers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, unfortunately, one of the themes of our reporting here in Haiti has been this idea that it is not easy for the people who want to be giving out aid to the people who need it most to get to those places.

A lot of places that were really affected by this earthquake are more remote parts of Haiti. It's not easy to get to them.

[00:25:00]

And we showed you one of those places recently, the town of Corail. It's a fishing village, roughly 30,000 people. Lots of damage and desperately needing of help.

A little bit of good news. After our reporting, we were told by a U.S. Coast Guard officials that at least one helicopter during the day on Thursday was able to make it to Corail. They took out four patients, brought them back here to Port-au-Prince for medical treatment.

We also know they are able to drop off supplies, a relatively limited number of supplies. But still, anything helps at this point. That town obviously needs a lot more help.

The Haitian government also saying that they were able to send out a number of successful convoys to different affected parts of the country. That's also good news.

We heard from the U.S. Coast Guard, as well, that they were able to go to a remote village called Annette (ph) here in Haiti. They actually medivacked out at least 20 patients from that village, a very hard-hit area.

All of that is good news, but it's not enough. These are areas that need much more help than that. They need the kind of substantive resources, substantive supplies that will truly make a difference not only in the cleanup efforts but also in the recovery efforts and the treatment efforts of those people who are injured.

And that's what we're going to be looking for going into the weekend. How many more supplies, Forces, troops can be mobilized, not only by the Haitian government but also from outside governments, charity groups to continue to reach those places, to make the kind of impact that is needed at this point? It's an open question, but it's something we're going to be following very closely.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: A nationwide COVID lockdown in New Zealand will be extended until Tuesday next week. The lockdown began Tuesday this week, hours after confirmation of the first COVID-19 case in almost six months.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the length of this lockdown will be reevaluated come Monday.

The outbreak has now grown to 30 active cases.

COVID lockdown restrictions in Sydney, Australia, are being extended through September as the city struggles to contain the spread of the Delta variant.

The state of New South Wales reported nearly 650 new infections on Friday, most in Sydney.

A nighttime curfew takes effect Monday for some of the city's most affected areas. And an outdoor mask mandate will be in place.

American-born Australian actress Nicole Kidman has triggered some pandemic controversy after she was allowed to skip Hong Kong's seven- day quarantine rules for international arrivals. Kidman is filming a TV series there for Amazon, and it seems she was given special treatment because she's Nicole Kidman.

Andrew Stevens live now in Hong Kong. Is it a storm in a teacup, or is this a big deal? How is it being seen?

ANDREW STEVENS, JOURNALIST: It's certainly a big deal in Hong Kong, John. There is real genuine outrage here that Nicole Kidman is being treated differently to other thousands of Hong Kong residents who are now trying to get back to -- now it's too late, but have been trying to get back to Hong Kong to beat these new quarantine restrictions, which have just been imposed this week by the Hong Kong government.

Hong Kong was already among the world's most harshest [SIC] quarantine restriction areas. And they just got harsher. So Nicole Kidman should have been facing a -- just a one-week

quarantine, had she been -- had the same rules applied to her. That one week was increased to two. But even if she had just done one week in a hotel in Hong Kong, there would've been an understanding.

She was totally exempted from coming into Hong Kong. She came from Australia, where there is an outbreak of the -- of the Delta variant of COVID. And she came, and the government has said that she's come here because what she's doing is conducive to the operations and development of the Hong Kong economy.

And it's caused outrage pretty much across the board. There's -- the Twitter sphere lit up, of course, about this. And there was a lot of comments about, you know, there seems to be one rule for the rich, one rule for the government and another rule for everyone else.

She was seen when she got to Hong Kong. She arrived last Thursday. Two days later, she was seen shopping in the center of Hong Kong. A day after that, she was seen filming at a local primary school.

So absolutely no attempt to self-isolate, at least. And this is what's really angering people who are facing, as I say, these almost draconian quarantine measures in Hong Kong.

VAUSE: Andrew, thank you. Andrew Stevens live in Hong Kong with the very latest there on Nicole Kidman. Appreciate it.

Coming up, now the Taliban control Afghanistan, they also control the U.S. weapons that were meant for Afghan security forces. We'll have more on what that means. The implications of a well-armed Taliban like never before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:32:15]

VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone, I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Questions linger over whether the rapid collapse of the Afghan government was due to a failure of intelligence, or operations, or communications, or a combination of all three.

We're now learning U.S. diplomats sent a secret cable last month, warning of a catastrophe. The so-called dissent memo called on the State Department to speed up the evacuation of Afghan allies, and laid out steps to do so.

But the White House says even those diplomats did not and could not predict the government crumbling before the end of the month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON FINER, DEPUTY U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: I think the cable reflects what we've said all along, which is nobody had this exactly right in predicting that the governments and army of Afghanistan were going to collapse in a number of days.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The president, as you know, says there was no consensus as far as intelligence. But how can they argue that this chaos was inevitable when just over a month ago, he promised an orderly withdrawal?

FINER: Look, Wolf, what I would say about this is when a country's army and its government go from -- from existing to essentially melting away in a matter of days, there is a degree of turbulence that is going to be inevitable in that situation, particularly in a place that is politically as complex and has had the sort of history in recent decades that Afghanistan has.

But we had a plan in place for this eventuality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Dissent memos are a way for diplomats who believe their views have been ignored to raise concerns. The U.S. State Department says it values constructive internal dissent, saying, quote, "It's patriotic. It's protected, and makes us more effective."

Meantime, the United States military says it's in constant communication with Taliban militants about security at Kabul's airport. Thousands of people are waiting for their chance to escape. Among them, an Afghan interpreter who worked with U.S. Marines. CNN's Cyril Vanier has his story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR (voice-over): On the other side of this crowd, the only way out of Afghanistan, Kabul International Airport. Families, women and children, thousands rushed here to be evacuated after the Taliban's sudden takeover of the country. Some are being turned away, it seems. Others are settling in for a long wait.

The man who shot this video, Haji. His identity protected for fear of retribution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take cover, take cover.

VANIER: Haji's (ph) journey to the airport really started here 10 years ago. Helmand province, the heart of the Taliban insurgency. Haji sided with the Americans, a translator for the U.S. Marine Corps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least one of those kids is a fighter. Do you agree?

Haji, INTERPRETER FOR U.S. MARINE CORPS: Yes. Definitely they are. They bring weapons here. Definitely they bring IED here.

VANIER: The Taliban never forgave him. He's been on the run with his wife and young children for five years. This is what Haji said to CNN only a few weeks ago.

[00:35:11]

Haji: If they found me, they'd kill me, and they'd kill my family. Because I was an interpreter with the U.S. Marines.

VANIER: Denied a special immigrant visa for the U.S. twice, Haji was running out of options when a former platoon mate stepped in.

LANCE CORPORAL JIMMY HURLEY (RET.), U.S. MARINE CORPS: I kind of had a moment where I realized that he -- he would not be able to do this by himself at all, and I felt like, if I didn't see it through, there was zero chance of him getting out.

VANIER: From half a world away, former Lance Corporal Jimmy Hurley applied for a new visa, and a few days ago started crowdfunding, anticipating hard times ahead.

HURLEY: Again, I really try not to get emotional here, but I was pretty blown away at $2,000 from friends and family, and then the CNN story aired. And then you know, hit 10, 13, 18. How quickly it grew has been really cool, really overwhelming.

VANIER: But the Taliban's lightning advance forced some difficult decisions.

"Haji, you 100 percent need to get to Kabul," Jimmy writes. "Have you gotten the money?"

Hours go by. And finally, this from Haji: "Getting to Kabul. Walking, running, hiding, walk in the mountain and in forest."

Haji and his family taking every risk, skirting Taliban checkpoints including this one, and rushing to the airport, gambling that their visa application would be enough to get them to safety.

(on camera): What happened when you tried to get to the gate?

HAJI: We try to go in, because I told him, "I've got this document." They said, "No. You have to have someone inside this airport. They come out for you, they will take you inside."

VANIER (voice-over): So, Haji waits for an elusive email. Crowds now looking like this outside the airport. The Taliban biding their time as the U.S. improvises a mass evacuation. Haji's life in the hands of the Americans, for whom a decade ago he risked his own.

Cyril Vanier, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: For more now on the situation in Afghanistan, CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton is with us this hour from Washington.

Colonel, it's good to see you. It's been a long time.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's good to see you, too, John. Thanks for having me.

VAUSE: I want you to listen to the national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, earlier this week on how much U.S. military hardware could now be controlled by the Taliban.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: We don't have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly, a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And a fair amount is a pretty big lot. According to news website The Hill, among the items seized by the Taliban: "Black Hawk helicopters, an A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft. Photos have also circulated of Taliban fighters clutching U.S. made M-4 carbines and M- 16 rifles, instead of their iconic AK-47s. Militants have been spotted with U.S. Humvees and mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles."

Let's just start with that. What all this means, though, in terms of the Taliban's capability of being able to rule this country, to impose their will on 36 million people.

LEIGHTON: Well, I think it's going to help them tremendously impose their will. The types of weapons that they have captured are the types of weapons that you would find in a middle-sized country that is really keen on controlling its population.

And these instruments of power, these weapons will allow them to do that to a large extent.

In addition to the types of items that, you know, the report mentioned, you also have intelligence here, you have communications here. All of these things that have become an incredible, really treasure trove for the Taliban, and that is going to make quite a difference in their ability to control the country.

VAUSE: And it's not really the latest top-of-the-line high-tech supersecret technology, but they do have helicopters. They have Black Hawks. And they have drones, the ScanEagle drones.

How much interest would there be from China, Iran, or Russia for a closer look at, you know, the helicopters or the drones?

LEIGHTON: There'd be considerable interest. You know, the Chinese and the Russians probably have some copies of a lot of these systems. But the Black Hawk helicopters, the UH-60s, are very interesting to them. The ScanEagle drone is not anymore one of the more sophisticated drones, but it has a lot of useful sensors on board that could be used for all kinds of purposes, whether -- you know, everything from controlling forest fires to -- you know, to see power, to control the sea lanes of communication.

All of these things could be very useful for Iran, China, or for Russia.

VAUSE: All up, I think, what, the U.S. spent $20 billion equipping the Afghan National Army with, I guess, some of the very latest in military hardware.

[00:40:09]

Even a fraction of that, if the Taliban have it, it's going to make quite an arms bazaar. And many of Taliban's best friends, like al- Qaeda, seem to be potential customers. Is this one of big fears out there?

LEIGHTON: Yes, it is. And in fact, the access that al-Qaeda, or an offshoot of ISIS would have to weapons like this would definitely be enhanced by access through the Taliban. And the Taliban are definitely not going to be controlling these weapons the way we would try to control them, for example.

So al-Qaeda, ISIS, any of those groups, and perhaps new groups that we've never even heard of up to this point, could benefit from these kinds of weapons, and they could cause a lot of damage.

VAUSE: The situation in Kabul right now, U.S. troops have secured the airport there, and the Pentagon spokesman basically said, essentially, that being able to hold the airport, and allowed to continue to operate by the quick grace of the Taliban. Here's Admiral Kirby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIRBY: I think it is just a fundamental fact of the reality of where we are that communications and a certain measure of agreement with the Taliban on what we're trying to accomplish has to continue to occur. And again, I'm not going to speculate past August 31.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK, so, will these evacuations continue? It seems unlikely the U.S. would take any significant moves to destroy what, for the Taliban, are essentially spoils of war. The longer that goes on, does that give the Taliban, you know, a greater chance to hide this equipment, to get it out of sight, to secure it away somewhere?

LEIGHTON: Absolutely. And in fact, a lot of countries or groups like the Taliban, have a lot of practice hiding weapons. You know, whether it's in the countryside, you know, in caves, in mountains, mountain ranges, in the desert. They can do that. And they have a lot of practice doing that. And in fact, they've done it for years, especially when it came to the improvised explosive devices, the IEDs. They did that all the time.

And these weapons will be very useful for them. They'll be very valuable for them. And even if they don't use them, like the Black Hawk helicopters, they're still good trophies for them. And that's a key thing for them to have. It's -- you know, it's the kind of war booty that becomes very important for a regime like the Taliban's. VAUSE: Yes. And it seems there's little the U.S. can do about it for

at least the time being. Colonel, good to see you. Thank you for being with us. We really appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: John, thanks so much for having me.

VAUSE: While most countries see the rise of the Taliban as reasons for fear and sadness, China sees their repressive government imposing stability on its border. Here's CNN's David Culver.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just weeks before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, China made a very public display of going closer to the group's leadership.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meeting a Taliban delegation in northern China in July, giving legitimacy and perhaps confidence to the militant group long regarded with fear and suspicion by the rest of the world.

As many global powers now rush to escape Afghanistan, China claims it remains one of the few countries to retain its embassy in the capital.

But China's support for the Taliban comes with strings attached. China's help with reconstruction, in exchange for the Taliban assuring regional stability.

HUA CHUNYING, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON (through translator): They will never allow any forces to use Afghan territory to endanger China.

CULVER: A deal brokered between awkward allies. A militant group representing hardline Islam and a Chinese government accused of cultural genocide against and mass detainment of its Muslim minorities at home.

But China's relationship with the Taliban goes back a long way.

SEAN ROBERTS, AUTHOR, "THE WAR ON THE UYGHURS": It established relations with the Taliban already in 1999 at the encouragement of Pakistan, which is one of China's closest allies.

CULVER: The relationship was seen as pragmatism to manage a potential threat, as China shares a small border with Afghanistan through the Wakhan Corridor. And China's multibillion-dollar belt-and-road investments in neighboring Pakistan are at stake.

HENRY STOREY, POLITICAL RISK ANALYST: I think they are very wary to get involved militarily. And so, at this stage, I think trying to cultivate the top ranks of the Taliban, promise lots of foreign aid and investments, that is really the least worst option at the moment.

CULVER: The Taliban, for its part, has not spoken out publicly against China's crackdown on its Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang, a silence replicated by many other Muslim-majority countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Chinese government defends its Xinjiang policy and says it's trying to stamp out terrorism after several attacks which it blamed on a group called the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, a tiny fringe group that began to dissolve when its leader was killed by the Pakistani military in 2003.

[00:45:04]

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On my orders --

CULVER: Sean Roberts, author of "The War on the Uyghurs," says the Chinese government used George W. Bush's war on terror to justify its harsh policies targeting the ethnic Muslim minorities.

SEAN ROBERTS, AUTHOR, "THE WAR ON THE UYGHURS": I think that shielded China from a lot of criticism for some of the draconian policies it carried out against Uyghurs.

CULVER: But other groups who could use the plight of the Uyghur cause to recruit jihadis, a concern for Asia's superpower as it tries to navigate the new political reality on its doorstep.

David Culver, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: When we come back, another sign of our changing climate. This time it's rain where it does not belong. The story and what it means for our future is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Hurricane warnings are in effect for parts of Mexico's Gulf Coast ahead of Grace making landfall in the country for the second time.

Grace struck the Yucatan Peninsula before weakening to a tropical storm. It's now back over water, strengthening over the Gulf, with sustained winds up to 100 kilometers an hour and expected to make landfall again late Friday, maybe early Saturday.

Well, for the first time on record, it rained at the summit of Greenland's ice sheet. The summit is three kilometers above sea level, and any precipitation has always fallen as snow.

Rain this past Saturday lasted a few hours. In July, the ice sheet experienced one of the most significant melting events in the past decade. It lost more than eighth billion tons of surface mess in one day.

That's enough to submerge the entire state of Florida in just a couple of inches of water.

Meteorologist Derek van Dam is -- has more on this and what it actually means for the planet. You know, stuff happening where it shouldn't happen is never a good sign.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, and this is a picture you don't want to see necessarily, raindrops on the mobile science laboratory at the highest elevation point within the Greenland's ice sheet.

We're talking over 3,000 meters above sea level. Temperatures rose above freezing for the third time in less than a decade. That warm air fueled a heavy rain event, which you're seeing the results of. That extreme rain event dumped over seven billion tons of water within the ice sheet on Greenland. This is incredible. That's enough to fill the reflection pool in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., over 250,000 times.

Now, this is the melt season. It occurs between June to August. This is a normal occurrence. Now, this particular event isn't as significant as the most drastic one, which occurred back in 2019.

But what is concerning is the pattern, the trend, the frequency of these warming events. The extreme warming events causing rain now, which is something that they have to deal with, something they haven't actually experienced since records were taken back in 1950.

This is just really incredible. So back in July, you talked about 18.4 billion tons in one week. This is another record-setting or extreme ice melt event. In just one day alone, 8.6 billion tons of ice melt, which was equivalent to produce 5 centimeters of water over the entire state of Florida.

[00:50:14]

So what happened here? Low pressure over Baffin Island, high pressure to the southeast of Greenland. That's enough to fuel that warm air surge to the north, allowing temperatures across the summit of the Greenland ice shelf to reach 15 degrees Celsius above where it should be this time of year.

You can see the extent of the ice melt and the shading of orange over that three-day period.

Melt water from Greenland is the largest contributor to sea level rise and as human-caused climate change continues to warm the planet, ice loss has increased rapidly across the world, specifically from the Arctic and into Greenland. We don't want to see more extreme ice loss events like this -- John.

VAUSE: Yes, I think we will, sadly. Derek, thank you. Derek van Dam there with the very latest.

Well, a new report from the United Nations says almost every child in the world is now at risk from climate change. One billion children are facing what it calls a deadly combination of extreme weather and poverty.

Young activists like Greta Thunberg say the time for world leaders to talk about climate change has come to an end. They're demanding action at this year's U.N. climate change conference. It will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in early November.

Still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, Republicans and Democrat leaders in the U.S. say they're happy to accept Afghan refugees, but they're having to cut through some far-right rhetoric. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Welcome back. It's been exactly one year since Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, an attack he blames on the Kremlin.

Now he's calling for tougher action on global corruption from his prison cell. In an opinion piece for "The Guardian," Navalny says corruption needs to be placed on the same level as poverty and climate change.

He's also urging governments to impose sanctions on the oligarchs closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He urged Russians to use smart voting in the coming legislative elections this September. Navalny is serving a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for parole violations, which were laid after the poisoning.

Now, the Biden administration scrambling to process applications for Afghan refugees, especially those Afghans who helped the U.S. during two decades of war. Republican and Democrat leaders say they're eager to welcome these evacuees, although some on the far-right are now fearmongering.

CNN's Brian Todd has more now, reporting from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some Afghan evacuees who have been granted so-called special immigrant visas, or SIVs, arriving in the United States, and some governors have stepped up to say they're welcome in their states.

GOV. TONY EVERS (D-WI): We have open arms here in Wisconsin.

TODD: Governor Tony Evers is a Democrat. At least nine Republican governors also say their states will welcome Afghan refugees.

So far, the U.S. government has relocated around 2,000 Afghan visa applicants to the United States during the current crisis, but could potentially bring in up to 30,000.

Some have landed at Dulles Airport near Washington. Others are being housed temporarily at Fort Lee, Virginia. Pentagon officials say military bases in Texas and Wisconsin may also help some. But in the long term.

KRISH O'MARA VIGNARAJAH, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE: For some, they may have a family tie. For others, they may want to go where other Afghans have gone before. So as a result, we see particular concentrations in Texas, California, the D.C. metro area, including Maryland and Virginia, and then Pennsylvania.

[00:55:06]

TODD: But there's now pushback from some conservative political figures on the plan to bring Afghan evacuees to America. Stephen Miller, former top advisor to President Trump, went on FOX News to say that resettling Afghans is little more than a costly political move.

STEPHEN MILLER, FORMER TOP ADVISOR TO DONALD TRUMP: Those who are advocating mass Afghan resettlement in this country are doing so for political, not humanitarian reasons. It is extraordinarily expensive to resettle a refugee in the United States. They get free healthcare. They get free education. They get free housing. They get free food.

TODD: Plus, Miller suggested, without evidence, that Afghans who have been granted those visas could pose security threats.

MILLER: We no longer are in control of the central apparatus in Afghanistan to be able to vet anybody.

TODD: Advocates who've helped Afghan refugees are pushing back hard on Miller, saying it's unconscionable for him to reject those who helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and in some cases, saved American lives.

MATT ZELLER, CO-FOUNDER, NO ONE LEFT BEHIND: There is no us and them. There's just an us. And you know what? Stephen Miller never wore a uniform a day in his life.

TODD: Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, whose group has helped resettle thousands of refugees, points out in the past, refugees like those from Vietnam, by and large, made their American communities stronger. As for any possible security risks among these arriving Afghans --

VIGNARAJAH: That couldn't be farther from the truth. These are individuals who went through a 14-point -- part process in order to enter the U.S.. They went through biometric checks. They went through CIA and Interpol databases, in person interviews, medical examinations.

TODD (on camera): Krish Vignarajah also says those Afghans are arriving in the U.S. with valuable skills. They worked as interpreters, engineers, doctors, drivers, meatpackers, security guards, she says. People who are especially needed in the United States right now, given the labor shortage caused by the pandemic.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. I'll be back with another hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a very short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause. This is CNN NEWSROOM.