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Biden Considers Extending Troop Presence Beyond August; Australian PM Hints at Easing COVID Restrictions; Former Afghan Central Banker: "Shock" That Ghani Fled Country. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired August 23, 2021 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:15]
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. Welcome to all of our viewers around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow, live in Atlanta.
Ahead on CNN:
The U.S. president is under growing pressure to ease the chaos of Kabul's airport. Now troops could stay beyond the initial August 31 deadline.
Anger over COVID lockdowns in Australia. The prime minister says it is simply unsustainable.
And the first U.S. vice president of South Asian descent on a visit to Singapore this hour.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: We start with the Kabul. U.S. President Joe Biden is vowing changes to help more American and their Afghan allies flee the country, a safe zone around the airport is now being extended. And Mr. Biden says there is active talk about extending U.S. troop presence in the country past August 31st deadline.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are working diligently to make sure we've increased the ability to get them out. We've changed the gate operations and a whole range of things, and that's why we've been able to significantly increase the number of people for getting out.
REPORTER: And will the Taliban agree to an extension past August 31st? Have you discussed that with them?
BIDEN: We discussed a lot with the Taliban. They've been cooperative in extending some of the perimeter. That remains to be seen whether we asked that question. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Sources say around 5,000 people were evacuated in just a 12 hour period on Sunday, that some 20,000 people still remain at the Kabul airport.
And although the U.S. is ramping up the pace of evacuations, more and more people are just trying to get up. For thousands of Afghans waiting at Kabul airport, the choice to leave the country after the Taliban takeover there might be an obvious one, but that doesn't make it any less painful. They're leaving family members, friends and their entire lives behind.
Sam Kiley explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We've landed just a few moments ago here at Kabul International Airport. Clearly, the pace of evacuation has been picking up, there are planes leaving pretty regularly now and large numbers of refugees and evacuees getting ready to get on those flights. This is a group that are heading into cat are, hoping to stay there or move on.
Qiamm, you are about to leave. What is going through your mind and your heart at the moment?
QIAAM NOORI, JOURNALIST: Actually, I told this many times, that right now I have mixed feelings of being a journalist myself, and probably I'm lucky enough to leave because of lot of trace that exists here, but I'm also leaving a whole family behind, a lot of friends behind. Also, most importantly my city, Kabul that I've been raised and born here. That's really -- it seems I'm just picking one piece of my soul, but leaving a lot of pieces back at home.
So, it's really -- it's strange. I don't know how to describe this. Am I happy? Am I sad? With this government, the new rulers, they -- I'm sure they will not leave us any space to be here.
KILEY: That must break your heart.
NOORI: Of course. Certainly. That has already broken. That is reality to me.
KILEY: Your heart is already broken?
NOORI: Yes. Yes. Yes.
KILEY: Good luck.
It's not just the personal tragedies that is so heartbreaking here, it is the tragedy of Afghanistan itself. For 20 years, so many millions of people believed that they would receive Western support. They believed in the evolution of female education, of the arts, of cinema. They thought they had a future. Now, that future is getting on an aircraft and leaving. As one of the evacuees just said to me, Afghanistan is seeing a total brain drain.
Sam Kiley, CNN, at Kabul international airport.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: And U.S. President Biden says there is still a long way to go before all Americans and Afghan allies are out of the country, but says that tireless efforts to keep planes taking off will push forward.
So, Arlette Saenz has more from the White House on -- Arlette.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Biden once again pledged to get all Americans out of Afghanistan safely and said the U.S. troops may need to remain in the country past the August 31st deadline in order to make that happen. The president said discussions are underway with the team about the progress of evacuations.
[01:05:01]
And he said he does hope they will be able to leave by August 31st, though it will be dependent on the status of Americans who are in Afghanistan.
Now, the president's remarks came as he addressed the country for the third time since Kabul fell to the Taliban. And while the president offered these assurances about evacuating Americans and Afghan allies safely and in a quick manner, he also said that there is still room for something to go wrong in this process. Take a listen.
BIDEN: There's no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss of heartbreaking images you see on television. It's just a fact. My heart aches for those things -- those people you see. We are proving that we can move, though, thousands of people a day out of Kabul. We are bringing in our citizens, NATO allies, Afghanis who helped us in the war effort. But we have a long way to go, and a lot could still go wrong.
SAENZ: The president is facing an incredible pressure, not just to get Americans out of Afghanistan, but also to evacuate those Afghan allies who worked closely with the U.S. over the course of the 20-year war in Afghanistan. Now, the president said those SIV applicants will be able to come to United States and is insisted they will be thoroughly vetted before they travel to the U.S.
These evacuees are leaving the Kabul airport and heading to a third- party site or operating base where that vetting is underway. Now, President Biden later this week is also preparing once again to speak with foreign leaders. He will attend it virtually, virtually attend a G7 leaders meeting where Afghanistan will be a focus, as there are so many questions from allies about the U.S. response in Afghanistan and what the future holds.
Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House. (END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: And the Northern Alliance is a group that has been fighting back against the Taliban. Their stronghold in the province north of Kabul has not fallen into Taliban hands. The group's leader Ahmad Massoud says he knows the situation is dire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AHMAD MASSOUD, NORTHERN ALLIANCE LEADER: Unfortunately, it all came down to this after a miserable, after a very bad and sickening peace deal, struck between Americans and the Taliban. And that was the foundation for the mess that we are at.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Massoud says he's willing to talk about refuses to accept the totalitarian regime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MASSOUD: We are not fighting geography. We are not fighting one province. We are defending the whole country in one province. That is what is happening, and we want to make Taliban realize that the way forward is through negotiations and talk and we are talking to them and we want -- no, we do not want war to break out and to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: On Sunday, the Taliban gave Massoud a deadline to surrender and that deadline has now passed.
Anna Coren has reported from inside Afghanistan for many years. She joins me now from Hong Kong with the latest on the situation.
It's a new week and certainly a new era. More instability and insecurity facing many Afghanistan people.
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Robyn. This is such a precarious situation, you know, as the Taliban decide was sort of government they want to form, and how they will govern. We know that the Haqqani Network, which is a group of the Taliban, extremely hard- line, responsible for bombings, killings, executions, kidnappings, and now in charge of security, certainly in the capital. That is terrifying, many people in Afghanistan.
I am in touch with Afghans, women who I met last month who were hiding out in their homes. These are educated women are pleading for assistance to get out of the country, and we are seeing those chaotic scenes outside the airport where thousands and thousands of people are gathering, and virtually camping out, Robyn, camping out in the hope that they might be able to make their way to the gate to plead their case.
In some cases, these people actually have the right documents. They have visas to travel outside Afghanistan, but for the majority of these people, Robyn, they have a passport and a national ID and that is it.
Now we have obviously been in touch with many Afghans who are trying to get out. We have been working with some Afghan interpreters who we have worked with, who have gone through the process, who managed to get through the gate, remembering there are multiple gates around this airport, but then once inside, they will stop by the marines because it did not have the right documentation. Now, as a result of that, you know, a number of people around the world got involved to ensure that that family with three young sons and are of the Hazara community, the ethnic minority which historically is persecuted by the Taliban, were actually allowed in.
[01:10:14]
But that is just one family, Robyn. There are thousands of them.
And we saw over the weekend, with those gates opening, there's been a stampede. People are trampled to death including children. That is the desperation that we are seeing from the Afghans being left behind -- Robyn.
CURNOW: Thanks so much for that update there, Anna Cornyn.
Joining me now is CNN political and national security analyst, David Sanger.
David, hi.
You're the national security correspondent for "The New York Times". As we look back over the past week or so, we've seen a lot of miscalculations, a lot of misjudgement, a lot of assumptions.
How is that not different from the last 20 years in Afghanistan? Why are people surprised that they were surprised by the failure of Afghan troops to stand up to the Taliban?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Robyn, I think you're right, with the history of this war has been one of over assuming the degree to which the Afghan national security forces would make use of the capacity, they were given, and frequently underestimating how organized and strategic the Taliban worked.
And, you know, as we did this reconstruction of events that appeared in the Sunday New York Times, what became clear to us is that back in April when the president made his decision that he was going to draw down to zero, the working intelligence assessment at the time was that the Afghans could hold off for 1 to 2 years.
By June, that came down to sort of 18 months, 6 months, and later on, and within a few days before Kabul fell, it came down to -- it's so close, we can't guarantee we could give you any warning.
CURNOW: So, what is this then, a political failure? An intelligence failure? Or just American interventions gone wrong? History of naivete overreach, and a variety of other foreign policy mistakes? SANGER: Well, President Biden has argued accurately that there isn't
any wanted to get out with because he was persuaded years ago that this was overreach, that we can't perform in this country and we had completed the mission when al Qaeda got driven out of Afghanistan.
And his next point was, if you're going to go focus the United States on big threats these days, focus on China, focus on cyberattacks, focus on this competition in space, but the risk of another terror attack coming out of Afghan territory was pretty low. There are higher risks actually elsewhere, Africa, other places where we've seen terror groups act.
That all made perfect sense as setting of priorities, but then there was the question of if you know you're going to get out by a date certain, how do you prepare for it? And, clearly, they didn't get enough of the work done in advance, especially getting out those Afghan interpreters and others who helped the United States, the sort of special visa applicants.
CURNOW: So this is a final act, or maybe it's beginning of another act that this is not a Hollywood ending. Americans are feeling ashamed and obviously there's disgraceful moral hand-wringing justifiably so about perhaps abandoning people, particularly vulnerable people who worked or gave something to the Americans. How is this then a political -- politically impacting this president? Was he gambling that this is really going to peter out?
SANGER: What he is gambling is that at the end of this whole process --
CURNOW: Whenever it is, because at the moment, it seems pretty endless.
SANGER: Yeah, right, but, whenever that moment comes, that he will be given credit as the president who finally got us out. You know, Obama said he wanted to do, it but he could never bring the number of troops down.
CURNOW: We know that people who read history know that Afghanistan, you know, I think it was Alexander the Great said it was the graveyard of empires. There is no surprise that Afghanistan is a messy, messy place by which to try to create some sort of intervention.
[01:15:00]
How much of an intelligence failure is this or is this just a political failure or a military one?
SANGER: You know, I think President Biden would argue that because it is the graveyard of empires, because you can't change the nature of the country, this ratifies that he was right to get out. But that doesn't excuse the failures, some of which were political, some of which were intelligence, about how quickly the Taliban would take over and thus without the luxury of time, the U.S. finds it's not able to rescue its own citizens the way that it had in mind, or get those 20,000 special interpreters and others out of the country. Now, he could still pull the rabbit out of the hat here. They are
clearly thinking of something as the president said on Sunday that is the size and sophistication of the Berlin airlift. And if they can actually make that work, I think they will get something turned around here.
CURNOW: David Sanger, always get to get your analysis. Thank you very much, sir.
SANGER: Great to be with you, Robyn.
So, coming up on CNN, scenes of panic buying in Vietnam as the country's biggest city goes into a very strict COVID lockdown.
Also, Australian police make many arrests after anti-lockdown protests turned violent. And the prime minister is looking to reassure the public about the government's COVID strategy.
We'll have a live report from Sydney.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CURNOW: Welcome back.
I'm Robyn Curnow live in Atlanta. It's 18 minutes after the hour. Thanks for joining me.
So, look now at the COVID situation around the world. Iran has reported a record daily death toll from the virus, with nearly 700 new deaths on Sunday. Now, that comes just a day after the country eased recent COVID restrictions, in which banks, government buildings, and nonessential businesses were actually closed.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's president is now among the first to receive a locally developed COVID shot. The health ministry gave emergency approval for Medigen's COVID vaccine last month. The opposition party opposes its use, saying the approval was rushed.
And store shelves are empty in Vietnam's largest city where residents are now prohibited from leaving their homes. It's a drastic new measure to contain the COVID surge in Ho Chi Minh City, the epicenter of Vietnam's outbreak. The new strict lockdown led to panic buying over the weekend.
And Australia's New South Wales has just reported another 800 new COVID cases, a slight drop from Sunday's record daily high. Meantime, the prime minister says strict COVID measures will come to an end once the vaccination rate hits 70 percent.
The announcement comes after police arrested hundreds of anti-lockdown protesters over the weekend.
Angus Watson joins me now live from Sydney with reaction to that.
[01:20:01]
Hi, Angus. What can you tell us?
ANGUS WATSON, CNN PRODUCER: Robyn, these protests that we saw over the weekend fueled by frustration here in Australia as lockdowns continue across major cities here in Sydney where I am, in the country's capital, Canberra, and in the country's second largest city, Melbourne, where the scenes over the weekend were particularly violent.
That's a small minority of Australians, of course. The majority of people want to do the right thing. They want to do with the leaders are telling them to do by staying at home and try to stop the spread of this delta variant.
But, Robyn, as you mentioned, the case numbers are going up. Over the weekend, New South Wales breaking its own record twice. And Scott Morrison wants to reassure people by telling people that these lockdowns will go on forever. He's aiming for that rate of 70 to 80 percent of adults having had two shots of COVID-19 vaccine, and say that lockdowns will be a thing of the past.
But the problem is, Robyn, that Australia's vaccine rollout has been slow. Just over 20 percent of the entire population is fully vaccinated when you take out children under the age o 16. That rate goes up to about 30 percent.
So, a little bit of a way to go, some positive news is that the vaccination rates are climbing. Scott Morrison saying this morning that 1.8 million vaccines were distributed in over the weekend. That's comparable to per capita basis to some of the highest rates in the U.K. and the U.S. -- Robyn.
CURNOW: And let's talk about New Zealand. I know we're getting some information on lockdowns there. What can you tell us?
WATSON: Robyn, a lockdown across the entirety of New Zealand will remain in force until at least Friday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announcing that this morning, it all began last week with one case that sent the country into lockdown. That's now over 100 active cases.
And New Zealand is a country that that's done particularly well with these sorts of lockdowns, but the country has admitted that delta has changed the game. And they're going to have to look at their COVID elimination strategy in order to get back some sort of normalcy for their country. The borders will remain close for New Zealand, the rest of the world, until at least the end of the year to give the government a chance to get its population vaccinated -- Robyn.
CURNOW: OK. Thanks for that. Live in Sydney, Angus Watson -- thanks, Angus.
For the last hour I talked with Sanjaya Senanayake. He's an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at the Australia National University Medical School and I asked him if the prime minister is acknowledging that the restrictions in Australia have been overkill, too tough and not effective in the long run.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANJAYA SENANAYAKE, INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST: We certainly are trying to find that fine balance with trying to get life to move on normally without all the economic and psychological and medical hardship we have seen with COVID, and also balancing that by making sure that the health system doesn't get overwhelmed. So, a lot of the country is in lockdown at the moment. In fact, where I am in Canberra is in lockdown.
CURNOW: Yeah, and many Australians think that these lockdowns are never-ending.
Has the Australian leadership do you think being beaten by this virus in trying to retreat into an island nation mentality, but at the same time not managing to deal with it when delta turned up?
How much is delta changed the conversation for Australians?
SENANAYAKE: Robyn, delta has been the game-changer. So we had the alpha variant into the country at the end of last year, and we had a number of incursions into the community in different parts of the country. Now, we were all very worried because we knew it was more infectious than the other will hand strain, but we were always able to get on top of it no matter what state or jurisdiction was involved.
But delta is different. It is far more infectious, and once it gets a foothold in a community, it is spreading like wildfire. So, that has changed the mentality, and even the vaccination rates in Australia has just accelerated in response to seeing what delta can do.
CURNOW: Why is the vaccination rate so low? I mean, again, is this -- is this another failure by the government?
SENANAYAKE: So, again, very interesting, Robyn, if you look at the countries that -- it seems to be a tale almost of two halves. So, if you look at countries that controlled COVID really well through last year, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, and you look now, they've got relatively slow vaccine rollouts. That's contrast to countries that really struggled with COVID, like the U.S., and U.K. who've done very well with their vaccine rollouts.
I think you can see in Australia by the surge in vaccinations in response to the lockdowns and the delta outbreaks that seeing what delta can do, whatever part of the world you're in, will accelerate your vaccine rollout.
[01:25:08]
And that's what's happening here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: So coming up on CNN, Afghanistan's former central banker escaped the country after the fall of Kabul.
Well, now, he's talking to CNN about the state of the country's economy. Well, that's next.
Plus, a glimmer of hope amid the despair of so many Afghan's trying to escape. A baby girl is born in the cargo bay of a U.S. military plane carrying evacuees out of Afghanistan. We'll have that story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CURNOW: Welcome back. Wherever you are in the world, thanks so much for joining me. I'm in Atlanta. I'm Robyn Curnow. You're, of course, watching CNN.
So, it has been one week since the Taliban took control in Afghanistan and thousands of people, the airport in Kabul remains the epicenter of a desperate attempt to escape.
A source says about 20,000 people are still in the airport. Even as more flights take off, the numbers really have not fallen because more people just keep on coming. Over 12-hour period on Sunday, about 5,000 people were evacuated.
U.S. President Joe Biden says some changes have been made to ease evacuations, but he also says there are talks about extending the August 31st deadline for U.S. troops to actually leave Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's former central banker though says the Taliban and the Afghan people are now facing a very bleak economic future. He had been in office before the Taliban took over and he escaped Kabul last Sunday and described his experience to Matt Egan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AJMAL AHMADY, FORMER GOVERNOR, CENTRAL BANK OF AFGHANISTAN: The plane that you see people scrambling to get on, I was on that plane, that evening. At some point I think I realized that it wasn't going to take off and so, we went on the tarmac. At that point, it was a surreal experience where various helicopters were taking off, planes were taking off, people running for anything they could find and I was able to find one where I do not have a ticket to where I could force my way on and I was very fortunate to get on.
MATT EGAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: How worried were you for your own safety? I think that you said on Twitter that you heard gunshots while you were at the airport.
AHMADY: Sure. At that point, once the president of the country announces that he is no longer in country, the whole chain of command falls apart. So there's no police, there's no air traffic controllers. It's every person for themselves at that stage.
EGAN: What went through your mind when you learned that President Ghani had left the country?
AHMADY: It was shock, complete shock. I couldn't believe it. It was disbelief.
There had always been talk of staying until the bitter end of fighting, and for him to have left without senior staff or other staff or making a speech or informing the public about it I think was not the right decision. I think a lot of people feel that way.
EGAN: Former President Ghani, he's denied allegations that he left the country with a large sum of money. Do you have any reason to doubt him?
[01:29:54]
AJMAL AHMADY, FORMER GOVERNOR, CENTRAL BANK OF AFGHANISTAN: Again, I was not on the plane. I was not with him at that time. And there were a lot of decisions that I mentioned I was not happy with. At the same time, I can say that we were again facing dollar shortages so we did not have dollars on mint.
And so unless he had an alternative source of cash with him available to him I would be skeptical of that report although I cannot deny it.
EGAN: Could he have gotten it from the central bank that you were in charge of?
AHMADY: Absolutely not.
EGAN: So now that the Taliban is in charge, how much access to the central bank money do they have?
AHMADY: I mentioned this, that Afghanistan had a relatively high amount of central bank reserves, $9 billion, approximately. Those, as is the norm with any central bank, are typically health and liquid assets such as U.S. Treasuries or gold and all of them are held abroad essentially.
So my expectation, I believe, has already come true, is that the U.S. Treasury would freeze those assets. So the amount of accessible reserves has dropped from $9 billion to a very low amount on the order of, let's say, a few, $10 million or less, or more. So it's a very small amount.
You could say that the import coverage ratio, which is a common metric, has dropped from more than 15 months to less than a week.
EGAN: And how important is it, given the way that the Afghanistan economy is structured, to have access to U.S. dollars?
AHMADY: It is vital. Afghanistan runs a very large trade deficit, which needs to be financed, and that had been occurring through donor inflows over the past few years, and that was the reason why we had been able to accumulate significant international reserves.
Now with the stock of reserves having been frozen and the flow likely to significantly decline, I think it's going to cause economic hardship in the region.
EGAN: The people of Afghanistan have already gone through a very traumatic time in just the past few weeks. What happens to food prices going forward? AHMADY: If inflation goes up, that means food prices will also go up,
and that is going to cause economic hardship. So I would stress that humanitarian assistance not only needs to remain but needs to be increased over the next few years and months.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is in Singapore this hour for talks with the prime minister and other officials. The trip, which will take her to Vietnam on Tuesday, was planned before the current crisis in Afghanistan.
Journalist Manisha Tank is there in Singapore and joins us now live with more on this trip and what it means, Manisha.
MANISHA TANK, JOURNALIST: That's right, Robyn. Well, I think it's very significant that Kamala Harris has come here. She is of course, the vice president of the United States, and it sends a strong message when you send someone of such seniority to this part of the world, especially with the dynamic between the United States and China in the backdrop.
But speaking of backdrops, and we will speak more about the U.S. and China in just a second, here in Southeast Asia we are grappling with a situation where COVID-19 is concerned. As you mentioned, the vice president will be going to Vietnam as the second part of her Southeast Asia trip.
Vietnam, which is struggling against the spread of the delta variant, with thousands of new cases being reported every day -- a real spike happening there.
Singapore is really the outlier in the region. When she arrived on the tarmac and was greeted by the foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan, she was wearing a mask along with her staff as well.
And that is one of the reasons COVID-19, of course, the restrictions being very tight here in Singapore, but her schedule was supposed to be very closely monitored.
But with that said, we are waiting for a press conference to start. All we see on our feed so far is an empty stage where we are awaiting an address from the vice president herself and Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong. They've been in bilateral talks this morning. We know there have been some smiles and some fist pumps, but what is on the agenda?
Well, let's get back to foreign policy and the U.S. and China. Here's what one expert Professor (INAUDIBLE) had to say to me earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KISHORE MAHBUBANI, ASIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE: There is no question whatsoever that Vice President Harris will bring up China in a forceful way in her conversations in both Singapore and Vietnam. The response will be that Southeast Asia wants to see a strong U.S. presence but don't make us to us choose you against China.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TANK: That was Professor Mahbubani who was also author of a book called "Has a China Won?", a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute part of the National University of Singapore.
[01:35:00]
TANK: And I think it's really important on the basis of foreign policy to point out, of course, that the vice president comes here at a time that is overshadowed politically by the situation in Afghanistan.
There are many questions around that, and the U.S.'s response to the Taliban making their way so swiftly through the country, which is, is the U.S. a reliable partner? That will be something, according to experts I've been speaking to, very much on the lips of policy makers here about the future of any conversation or the future of any relationship with the U.S.
But with that said, I do want to mention that later, should everything run to time, and so far it isn't, the vice president will be going to Changi naval base where the USS Tulsa is in port and it's worth mentioning that it wouldn't actually be in port if it wasn't for decades of strategic partnership and understanding between Singapore and the United States, Robyn.
CURNOW: Ok, thanks for that, Manisha Tank in Singapore.
Some people took to the streets in Paris this weekend, calling on western countries to do more in Afghanistan.
Afghans were among the hundreds of people who gathered in the city on Sunday, demonstrators as you can see here waved Afghan flags, carried signs reading "Afghans welcome, save our family".
They say it's not just about helping people escape the country but also helping those left behind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For me, the international community, especially European countries and the United States, must have the resistance that has just begun, and help the Afghans who do not want this regime.
We cannot ask everyone to leave the country. It is not a solution. And we cannot forget the people who worked with the westerners for humanitarian values. So they must help the people who are there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Well, to help with evacuations, the U.S. is calling on civilian airlines to help move people to safety once they are out of Afghanistan. It's part of a program called the Civil Reserve Air Feet. It covers 18 flights from the airlines you see here, American, Atlas, Delta, Omni, United, and Hawaiian.
Again, they won't be headed to Kabul. Instead they will help move people to other places once they have reached temporary safe haven.
And many countries are stepping up to take in Afghan refugees including the U.S., U.K., Canada, and others. Meanwhile more than a million Afghan refugees are already registered in Pakistan and hundreds of thousands are in Iran and Turkey.
And the heartbreaking images we have seen of Afghans trying to flee the country have only laid bare the desperation many are feeling. But amidst the chaos and the despair there have been moments of joy. Atika Shubert shares one such story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): An image of hope amid the chaos, a baby girl born in the cargo bay of the U.S. Air Force C-17 carrying Afghan evacuees.
As the plane landed at Ramstein Airbase, the 86th medical group rushed in to safely deliver her. Ramstein Airbase in Germany has become the latest hub for evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.
CNN filmed as some of the first flights arrived. More than 6,000 have been evacuated here with 17 flights landing in 24 hours, airbase officials say, and more to come.
Here there is safety, basic shelter, food and water, but it is only a temporary measure. Many here do not know where they will go next or how. But for the moment there is relief and reason to celebrate new life.
(on camera): Now the capacity at the air base is 7,500 and even though flights are not coming in on Sunday evening, they are expected to continue Monday morning. So it is filling up fast and it's still not clear where evacuees will go to next?
Atika Shubert, CNN at the Ramstein Airbase in Germany.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: To find out how you can help Afghan refugees or if you are a veteran troubled by events in Afghanistan, please do go to CNN.com/impact for assistance.
And this just in to CNN, we are getting reports of a firefight at Kabul Airport, involving U.S., German and Afghan forces and an unknown group of assailant. The German military says the fighting took place at the airport's north gate and that one Afghan security member was killed, three were wounded.
We don't know of any other casualties at this time. We will, of course, bring you more information as soon as we get it.
[01:39:33] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CURNOW: In east Africa, a surge in COVID cases is getting the attention of vaccine-hesitant Kenyans, as hospitals and morgues are pushed to the absolute limit. Right now less than 2 percent of the country is fully vaccinated.
But as CNN's Scott McLean reports, resistance to the jabs may finally be easing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In the Kenyan county of Nyeri, coffin makers say they have never been so busy. Over the past few weeks the delta variant has turned the funeral business into a lucrative one, as Kenya battles its 4th wave of COVID-19.
Lately demand for caskets has more than tripled, and yet not even all the men building them want to take the vaccine.
(on camera): Do you want it?
DENNIS MARA, COFFIN MAKER: No, no, no. People are not dying because of the virus. And they are dying because of another disease.
MCLEAN (voice over): Around town it's more of the same.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why should I take something that I don't know what it will do to my body? If, and I say if with capital letters, if we understand about it maybe we can do it. But for now it's a no.
MCLEAN: Across the country, less than 2 percent of Kenyans are fully vaccinated. Short supply has been a problem since day one, but now it's not the only one. Vaccine hesitancy is also having deadly consequences.
(on camera): All 31 beds at this hospital are occupied. When a new patient shows up they are simply turned away. Most of the patients here are unvaccinated, not because they couldn't get the vaccine but because they chose not to take it.
EUDIAH WANG'OMBE:, HOSPITAL CLINICIAN: They had doubts and reservations. They had their own fears. Probably that is why they didn't get it.
If you ask why they didn't get the jab some of them got told it is not available. And that's the majority to have it because they had all issues.
MCLEAN: The hospital says it has a newly-installed oxygen compressor but it is not enough to meet demand. There are also no intensive care beds. And on this day four patients are in desperate need but likely won't find one.
MUTAHI KAHIGA, GOVERNOR, NYERI COUNTY: Yes. I will admit that the situation is dire. We have not been here before. MCLEAN (on camera): Are hospitals having to turn people away?
KAHIGA: Yes because if you went now to Mount Kenya, we don't have -- we have nowhere to take you.
MCLEAN: The governor of the largely rural county says Kenyans have been slow to recognize the seriousness of the virus. He says many people have chosen not to get the vaccine and even a third of people who got their first shot, haven't turned up for the second.
Reports of extremely rare blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, general misinformation and some traditional beliefs have all contributed.
KAHIGA: I think with COVID-19, some of us are still in denial. They are still -- they are still holding on to traditional beliefs which cut across Africa.
MCLEAN: But as the hospitals and morgues fill up, some attitudes are changing from small towns and villages to the capital, Nairobi.
I think I was in contempt (ph) for a long time. Death can convince me, yes. If this will prevent me from dying, hopefully, I would rather take it.
[01:44:53]
MCLEAN: Back at the hospital, another body leaves for the morgue in what lately has become a daily routine here. Every death, a tragedy; many, also entirely preventable.
(on camera): How does that make you feel?
WANG'OMBE:: Demoralizing. Breaking. To break somebody's heart, it breaks. It's so demoralizing.
Scott McLean, CNN -- Nyeri County, Kenya.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Thanks Scott, for that report.
So 70 percent of Chile's population is fully vaccinated but now authorities are rolling out booster shots for some older citizens who received the vaccine developed by Chinese company Sinovac. It's all part of efforts to turn back a new tide of COVID cases in the country as Rafael Romo now reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): While some people refused to get vaccinated this man in Chile lost his temper when a nurse told him he was not yet eligible to get inoculated.
It was only 8 in the morning but lines outside this vaccination center in Santiago, the capital, were already long. The Chilean government had just announced a third dose was now available for some.
The new vaccination campaign started earlier this month for those 86 and older. Those who already got two doses of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine are eligible for an AstraZeneca booster shot and people with weak immune systems or chronic diseases can get Pfizer BioNTech.
"I showed up early to seek my third dose because I'm 86 years old," this man said.
"You just have to be a little smart and show up. It would be ridiculous to say no to this opportunity," this woman said.
President Sebastian Pinera said his government expects two million Chileans, 55 years and older will get the 3rd dose in the next four weeks, and that younger people will start to have access gradually starting in September.
At the same time, the president made a passionate plea to the estimated 1.8 million, who have yet to get vaccinated.
"I would like to tell them once and for all," the president said. "How could you be so stubborn and not understand that not getting vaccinated puts not only yourself, but others at risk?"
Chile was supposed to be Latin America's bright spot in the fight against COVID-19. Only months after the pandemic was declared, it managed to acquire vaccines from companies like Sinovac and Pfizer BioNTech.
(on camera): This head start gave many Chileans a sense of safety, even the rapid pace of vaccinations. But after Christmas gatherings and New Year festivities, the sustained push to reopen all schools and shopping malls and less than desired levels of effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine, the country was hit by a new wave of infections early this year.
(voice over): Things have since gotten better in the country of 19 million. More than 12.7 million people are already fully vaccinated and just over 100,000 have received the third dose.
"It's like going back to the beginning," this nurse says. We have to redouble our efforts, but our personnel is trained to inoculate the patients."
The Chilean health minister, who several months ago apologized for what he called mistakes that probably caused pain for many families, announced in mid August ad 82 percent decrease in COVID-19 admissions to ICU units.
However, he warned, "We must remember that we have not yet defeated the pandemic and that we need to keep on fighting against it."
Rafael Romo, CNN -- Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE) CURNOW: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant full approval of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID vaccine as early as the coming days. A senior federal official describes the decision as being imminent.
Well full approval will certainly pave the way for more vaccine mandates across the country. the CDC data shows 29 percent of Americans who are eligible to receive a vaccine still have not got any of their shots.
Meanwhile the U.S. COVID deaths are rising for the first time in nearly five months, deaths are once again averaging more than a thousand a day.
And ahead here on CNN, Henri has weakened to a tropical depression, but still remains a big, big threat to parts of the U.S. Northeast.
Also we will hear from a survivor who managed to escape after floods devastated parts of Tennessee.
[01:49:27]
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CURNOW: An incredible discovery in Haiti a week after that devastating earthquake hit the country. Rescue crews have found two dozen survivors trapped in a mountainous region about 60 kilometers form the quake's center -- epicenter.
The four children and 20 adults were airlifted to a nearby town for treatment. The death toll from that earthquake is now past 2,200.
And we have devastating scenes in southeastern U.S. after severe flood left at least 21 people dead n middle Tennessee. Officials say around 20 others are still missing.
The flooding was especially devastating in county west of Nashville. Video of the aftermath shows cars and homes, as you can see here, destroyed by the flood waters.
One resident said the water rose so quickly it was like a tidal wave.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASEY HIPSHIRE, FLOOD SURVIVOR: It just came so fast and I packed a bag as quick as I could for all of us. And nest thing I know, the water is in my house and is up to my chest and my house fell off the foundation while we're still in it. So we had to break the window in the kitchen and crawl out of it and get up on the roof as fast as we could.
My yard filled up. I'm like ok, it's going to go back down. It will be ok. And then all of a sudden it was like a tidal wave that just came over the road and into my yard and swept my house away.
It was so fast and so devastating. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: and then in northeastern U.S. Henry has weekend to a tropical depression but the storm is still expected to produce heavy rainfall and flooding across the region in the coming hours.
I want to go to Derek Van Dam. Derek is tracking it all from Rhode Island, Derek.
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: New England is in damage assessment mode with tropical storms passing across western Rhode Island. In fact it made landfall in Westerly, Rhode Island just down the coast from where I'm standing now.
This is the Newport harbor. You can see occasionally, we get tropical storm force gusts but the rain has already come to an end and we were largely spared the worst that the tropical storm could have potentially brought to this region.
But at the peak of tropical storm Henri, there were numerous trees that fell across some of the coastal communities knocking out power. Also the state and the region that is very vulnerable to power outages especially when tropical systems move through just like this.
There were over 100,000 people without power at one stage. And in Rhode Island alone, over 75,000 customers without power.
Now the concern going forward as the temperatures start to rebound in the coming days, those still without electricity will have to deal with the oppressive heat and humidity that's going to build in across the Eastern Seaboard which will make life very difficult for anyone living across this region.
But as this storm starts to peter itself out, rain itself out across the northeast, still the ongoing threat for flooding and we'll be monitoring that very, very closely across New England.
I'm CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam from Newport, Rhode Island. Back to you.
CURNOW: Thanks Derek for that.
And I want to go straight now to Pedram Javaheri. Pedram, hi.
What's happening right now.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Robyn, you know, this storm system has slowed down quite a bit here. Still producing a tremendous amount of rainfall. A lot of people let off their guard when we go from a hurricane down to a tropical storm and especially when you drop it back to a tropical depression where the system fits precisely.
But this is the most densely populated corner of the U.S. This area has been saturated from remnants of Fred, the previous tropical system that worked its way across this region about a week ago or so.
[01:54:49]
JAVAHERI: And now we're talking about this particular depression Henri that is sitting in place here, tremendous volume of thunderstorm activity even at this hour in Eastern Pennsylvania into southern New York State.
And of course, the winds have been powerful, gusting at times to near hurricane force, that is 70 plus miles per hour there, observation seen in Point Judith (ph), close to about 120 kilometers per hour.
And again these sort of winds with a fully saturated soil will easily bring down trees. This is exactly why that Derek talked about at one point 100,000 plus customers without power still sitting at roughly 70,000 customers nearly across portions of the state of Connecticut on into Rhode Island that the most direct impacts are felt with the storm still in the dark.
But notice, your pushing up to 200 plus millimeters of rainfall in a matter of 24 hours, you know it's an impressive rain event and then you notice the population density across this area which includes, of course, Boston, New York and Philadelphia -- all of which underneath flood watches and in some areas when you work your way towards some of the boroughs, just north of New York City including Yonkers there.
These areas are underneath flood warnings meaning, flooding is imminent or occurring at this hour across this region. So we know the incredible amount of rain has been historic.
Look at Central Park, about four and a half inches came down. Records going back 133 years, it had never rained this much across this region on this state. So an impressive run of storms and it's going to be raining again through at least Monday before conditions improve come Tuesday, Robyn.
CURNOW: Ok. Thanks for that update there, Pedram Javaheri. Good to see you, Pedram.
We're also following wild fires in California. Right now there are more than 13,000 people battling at least 13 large active fires across that state. That includes the Dixie Fire, the Monument File and the (INAUDIBLE) Fire which we're showing you images of now, right now.
More than 600,000 hectares have been destroyed across California, this as severe drought continues across the (INAUDIBLE).
And then in just one day, the Paralympics kick off in Tokyo. Torch relay is its final stretch ahead of the opening ceremony. Torch bearers in five districts are of Tokyo gathered Sunday as COVID concerns remain high in Japan.
The nation extended a COVID-19 emergency in Tokyo as infections remain at record levels. Organizers say they will implement the same protocols for the Paralympics that were used for the Olympics.
And I'm Robyn Curnow. Thanks so much for watching. You can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram at RobynCurnowCNN -- there it is there on your screen.
I will back in just a moments with CNN NEWSROOM. The news continues. You're watching CNN.
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