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Police Charge Suspect After Deadly Attack In Norway; Joe Biden Announces "90-Day Sprint" To Unclog U.S. Shipping Ports; IEA Calls For Clean Energy Investments To Triple By 2030; Vladimir Putin Claims Russia Is Not Using Gas As A Weapon; Bali Reopens To International Travelers; William Shatner Becomes The Oldest Person Ever In Space. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired October 14, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm John Vause.
Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, deadly rampage in Norway. Five people killed by a suspected lone attacker allegedly armed with a bow and arrow.
Non-justified blather, the Russian president's denial of accusations he's weaponizing gas supplies to Europe as it struggles with an energy crunch.
And William Shatner, he spent much of his life playing the captain of a starship finally travels to the final frontier, a 10-minute long life changing experience.
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.
VAUSE: We begin with the very latest on the violent rampage in a small town in Norway, which left five people dead and two others badly wounded. A 37-year-old man armed with a bow and arrow has been charged and police say it appears he acted alone. And at this time, they're not searching for any other suspects.
The crime scene is spread across a wide area of Kongsberg where the first attack in a supermarket in the center of town.
Police received the first emergency call at 6:13 p.m. local time. The suspect was in custody about a half hour later.
Right now, there is no apparent motive behind the attack. Investigators are not ruling out a possible link to terrorism.
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OEYVIND AAS, DRAMMEN, NORWAY POLICE CHIEF (through translator): This has been a very serious situation. And it obviously affects Kongsberg and those who live there. Not only those people living near where it happened, but the whole local community are affected by what happened. (END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Kongsberg is just over 80 kilometers southwest of Norway's capital Oslo home to about 30,000 people.
The prime minister says it's too early to know if there's a connection between the attack and a new government taking office on Thursday. The long ruling conservative party was defeated in parliamentary elections last month.
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ERNA SOLBERG, OUTGOING NORWEGIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We don't know if it's a political attack that has taken place. The police will have to investigate that.
We know that in many countries over a long-time, attacks have been prevented by good police work, but that the issue of lone perpetrators is difficult. But we need to know more to find out if this is one of these situations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: In the hours after the rampage, police were given rare authorization to carry weapons. Murder is rare in Norway, just 31 cases reported last year according to the New York Times, and this violent rampage comes just months after Norway marked the 10th anniversary of the deadly attack by right-wing extremists, which killed 77 people.
The lead out to holiday shopping, global supply chain problems are leaving many retailers short on merchandise. Demand has surged as pandemic lockdowns and other restrictions have come to an end. But labor shortages in many countries, meaning containerships are not being unloaded and goods not transported to retailers. All of this leading to shortages as well as higher prices. And that is now threatening the global economic recovery.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden stepped into announced a 90-day sprint to ease the backlog in the United States.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With the holidays coming up, you might be wondering if gifts you plan to buy will arrive on time. We have some good news, we're going to help speed up the delivery of goods all across America.
After weeks of negotiation and working with my team, and with the major union retailers and freight movers, the Ports of Los Angeles -- the Port of Los Angeles announces today that it's going to begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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VAUSE: Well, there's pressure for global supply chains in Europe, they're facing an energy crunch. To get relief from the surging prices, the European Commission is proposing targeted short-term measures to help homeowners and businesses with the increased cost of energy.
But for the long term, the International Energy Agency says investments in clean energy need to triple by the end of the decade to fight climate change and keep energy markets under control.
CNN's Clare Sebastian has more now on the IEA's report, and how Russia could play a role in helping ease this crisis.
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CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This was a stark warning from the International Energy Agency that without drastic action, the world will fail to meet its net zero emissions target by 2050.
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SEBASTIAN: The IEA says even if all current commitments are fulfilled, CO2 emissions will only fall by 40 percent by 2050.
But this wasn't just a warning about the risks of climate change, this was a warning about the risks to economies if energy transitions aren't managed properly.
Current price volatility it says is given countries "Advanced warning of what could happen if they failed to invest quicker in clean energy technologies".
And that's exactly what Europe is grappling with right now, the E.U. Commission on Wednesday outlining a dual approach, a short-term package of measures like tax cuts and vouchers to shield households from soaring energy prices this winter and accelerating longer term investments in renewable energy to ensure a sustainable transition and greater energy independence.
Well, right now, of course, Europe is not energy independent. In fact, it's heavily dependent on Russia, which has been criticized for using the current crisis to further its own political gains and accelerate the approval of new pipelines like the controversial Nord Stream 2. Where President Putin Wednesday denied this and said he would be willing to talk about doing more.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Russia flawlessly fulfills its contractual obligations to our partners, including our partners in Europe. We ensure guaranteed uninterrupted gas deliveries to Europe. We have all the reasons to believe that by the end of this year, we will reach record levels of gas deliveries to global market.
Moreover, we always strive to meet our partners halfway. We are prepared to discuss any additional steps.
SEBASTIAN: All of this coming just weeks before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the IEA says there needs to be a "unmistakable signal from leaders to spare the needed investment".
Clare Sebastian, CNN, New York.
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VAUSE: Megan Greene is an economics commentary writer for The Financial Times and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. She joins us this hour from Boston.
Megan, thank you for being with us.
MEGAN GREENE, SENIOR FELLOW, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: Yes, thanks for having me.
VAUSE: OK, so, here's a little more from Russia's president. He's responding to these outrageous -- these outrageous allegations that the Kremlin is weaponizing gas supplies during this crisis. Here he is.
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PUTIN (through translator): And you are talking about accusations against Russia that uses energy sources as a weapon, that is complete nonsense and rubbish, politically motivated, non-justified blather.
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VAUSE: Non-justified blather, except on the many occasions in the past when Russia has actually weaponized gas supplies in Europe.
GREENE: Yes, absolutely. Russia has forum (PH) when it comes to doing this. It's done a number of times when there's been an energy crunch in Europe, when it wants to exert power certainly externally.
To be fair on Putin, this time around, the energy crunch isn't actually Russia's fault, per se. But I do think that Putin has seen an opportunity to come in and exert power in a somewhat benevolent way by saying, you know what, we'll go ahead and help you out here.
Of course, expecting that a favor will come back Russia's way further down the line.
VAUSE: (INAUDIBLE) the E.U. Energy Commission said last week, our initial assessment indicates that Russia has been fulfilling its long- term contracts while not providing any additional supply.
And that additional supply would be through spot deals or one-off purchases of gas. So, as you say, Russia is not to blame for the cost increases, but the Kremlin is not helping a whole lot here. Is it making a bad situation worse?
GREENE: So, I'm not sure that it's making a bad situation worse, that Russia is doing that necessarily. There are a lot of reasons for higher energy prices in Europe right now, you know, stretching from not enough wind this summer to not enough inventory from last winter. So, it's not all down to Russia. But energy prices being up are certainly making a bad problem worse
and that prices have been rising across Europe, across the developed world, in fact, writ large.
VAUSE: Yes, you mentioned the lack of wind, which is impacting the cost of energy in many parts of Europe. This -- you know, this is another bump in the road, if you like in that transition from fossil fuels to renewables. And we heard from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency with this warning, listen to this.
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FATIH BIROL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY: Looking at the challenges we have in front of us, both energy challenges and climate challenges, we need to accelerate our efforts in terms of the solar, wind, electric cars and other clean energy technologies.
Otherwise, we may well see A, more turbulence in the energy markets as we are experiencing now. And B, we may well be short of reaching our climate costs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: How much turbulence do you see in the years ahead and can that be avoided?
GREENE: So, I think we are going to have a lot of turbulence. There's sort of two narratives on this one. One is that we need to hurry up and switch over to renewables. The other is, oh, God, we can't go too fast because if we haven't replaced what we're now consuming from fossil fuels, we're going to end up with huge supply shocks.
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GREENE: I think that no matter what, we are going to end up with supply shocks going forward. And the longer we wait to actually make this transition, the more abrupt the transition will end up having to be, the bigger the supply shocks.
VAUSE: Yes, there's also one of the other issues which is being sort of playing out right now in the sort of the return to almost pre- pandemic normalcy if you like. And this is a supply chain issues.
In the U.S. right now, there's a record number of cargo containers anchored off the Southern California Coast. The president on Wednesday announced the Port of Los Angeles will join the Port of Long Beach, moving to a 24/7 operation, here he is.
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BIDEN: 24/7 system, what most of the leading countries in the world already operate on now, except us until now. This is the first key step to moving our entire freight transportation and logistical supply chain nationwide to a 24/7 system.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: He also said that Walmart, which is the biggest retailer in the U.S., as well as FedEx and UPS are ramping up their operations as well to try and just move inventory. How big of a dent will all of this make? Because what -- right now when you go to the supermarket, when you go to the stores, there are empty shelves still.
GREENE: Yes, so this should help. I think a big problem though on the U.S. side of the supply chain disruptions is a lack of workers, so a lack of longshore workers and also truckers and this doesn't actually address that problem.
So, even if we run the ports 24 hours a day, we don't necessarily automatically have the workers to go ahead and do that. So, I think that will continue to be a challenge.
And also, don't forget that, you know, one issue in the supply chain can gum up the entire supply chain. And it's not just the U.S. ports that are a problem.
I'll point to factories in China that are closing down in order to reach emissions targets, for example. And we can expect that to continue particularly given the China's hosting the Olympics next year, and they want blue skies.
So, even if we managed to address our side of supply chain disruptions, other countries might not actually manage to address theirs, and then the entire chain can be disrupted.
So, I think we'll continue to see these kinds of disruptions for at least the next six months, if not a year, and that will keep prices higher than the otherwise would have been.
VAUSE: Megan, thank you. Megan Greene. We appreciate you being with us.
GREENE: Thanks for having me.
VAUSE: Another sign of a return to normalcy, one of the world's most popular tourism destinations, Indonesia's resort island of Bali set to reopen Thursday.
For the past 18 months, Bali has been closed to international tourists, a measure to try and slow the spread of the coronavirus, but soon, visitors from a select number of countries will be welcomed back with hopes they'll bring a much-needed economic boost.
Manisha Tank joins us now from Singapore with more. I guess the -- who are these countries? I guess they're the ones that have a low level of COVID infections and high vaccination rates.
MANISHA TANK, JOURNALIST: Yes, they're also ones that can have direct connections, John, with the Balinese Island, it has an international airport. And I think that's a key part of the equation as to which countries they open up to.
Like you said, they are select number, 19 of them. And they include some of the countries that have the largest amounts of tourism dollars, China, India, Japan, several countries in Western Europe. And these have been really important sources of revenue for Bali in the past.
And so, to see those sorts of tourism dollars come back is really significant.
In fact, the island's governor has come out this week to say that 54 percent of the economy relies on tourism.
So, that gives you a sense of how important this will be for the people who live there.
But then, we're of course prompted to ask why now, why is it happening now?
Just months ago, yourself and I, we were talking about the coronavirus rampaging its way through Indonesia. Bali, of course, one of those islands affected that was so popular with international tourists.
Now, the Health Ministry is telling us 90 percent vaccination is the rate that we're seeing in Bali and that is a double dose of vaccinated.
Let's just get into the nitty gritty of if you are an international traveler and you want to go there, what do you have to do?
Well, a five-day quarantine at your own expense. You also have to be double vaccinated to travel to Bali.
But some of the restrictions or the rules around going there are still really patchy.
So, for example, we don't know which visa requirements apply to citizens from which countries on that list of 19.
We also know that there are no international flights arriving today, even though the island has opened for business.
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TANK: In fact, a spokesperson from the airport has said, there's nothing on the schedule so far. And this could be because there is so much confusion around as to what those requirements are on visas and things like that.
But if you think about it, certainly for those of us who live in Southeast Asia, and I want to point out, that I actually have a Balinese wall hanging right next to me that was picked up on my last trip there for the short haul trips that many of us in this region do which last three or four days, the idea of going and doing a five-day quarantine might not be so ideal.
I've just done a quarantine myself and I can tell you, you don't leave your hotel room the entire time. But it is really good news for Indonesia, for Bali, for its tourism economy to know that things are open, but we still need more detail, John.
VAUSE: That's a very nice Balinese rug too, thank you. Thank you, Manisha, appreciate your take. Take care.
Well, coming up, an easing of restrictions in the U.S. for visitors traveling from Canada and Mexico, details in a moment.
Also, Star Trek's Captain Kirk makes history. The oldest person to travel into space. His emotional reaction back on terra firma.
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WILLIAM SHATNER, OLDEST PERSON EVER TO FLY IN SPACE: What you have given me is the most profound experience.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To boldly go where no man has gone before.
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VAUSE: And on Wednesday, 90-year-old actor William Shatner boldly went where no 90-year-old man has gone before, person for that matter, traveling to the final frontier on board Blue Origin's NS-18 flight. The 10-minute-long journey to the very edge of space was apparently a life changing experience for the actor who spent a lifetime playing Captain James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise.
CNN's Kristin Fisher has details.
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KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): And with that, 90-year-old Star Trek icon William Shatner became the oldest person ever to travel to space.
Shatner and three other passengers were propelled from the desert of West Texas to the edge of outer space aboard a New Shepard spacecraft developed by Jeff Bezos' rocket company, Blue Origin. It's the same spacecraft that took Bezos to space this summer.
Bezos, a lifelong Star Trek fan flew Shatner as a guest along with Blue Origin Executive Audrey Powers and two paying customers.
The out of this world adventure lasting just 10 minutes from takeoff to landing, leaving all four passengers including Shatner mesmerized by the view.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Weightlessness. Oh, Jesus. No description.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is nuts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God.
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FISHER: Shatner and his crewmates experienced about three minutes of weightlessness before the capsule started its descent back to Earth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There it go, the drogue parachutes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was unlike anything they described.
FISHER: After landing safely, a Blue Origin team secured the capsule, and Bezos himself did the honors.
JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER, BLUE ORIGIN: Hello astronauts, welcome to earth.
FISHER: Cheers as each of the four passengers walked out of the capsule, including Captain Kirk himself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Captain Kirk himself, the great William Shatner.
FISHER: Shatner telling Bezos, it all happened so quickly.
SHATNER: It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, you know, the little things, the weightlessness. And to see the blue color go whip by and now you're staring into blackness.
FISHER: Shatner clearly taken aback by the gravity of the moment.
SHATNER: I'm so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just -- it's extraordinary, extraordinary.
I hope I never recover from this.
FISHER: William, you've had one of the most -- perhaps one of the most interesting lives that any human could possibly have. Where does this stack up on your list of life experiences?
SHATNER: This is enormous. I'm overwhelmed. And it takes more than a little thing to overwhelm me.
FISHER: You said, everybody in the world needs to see it. Why? What do we need to see?
SHATNER: Yes, but it's not tourism. Everybody in the world needs to have the philosophical understanding of what we're doing to earth and the -- and you hear this so often, the necessity of cleaning our earth and stopping right now, the apocalypse that's coming our way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FISHER (on camera): So, William Shatner really walking away from this experience convinced that the world would be a better place if more people had a chance to go into space and see what he saw.
But right now, the cost of going up in one of Blue Origin's New Shepard rockets or a Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, it's exorbitantly expensive. And Blue Origin won't even say how much the two paying customers on this flight paid.
So, I asked them directly, they wouldn't tell me what they spent. All they would say is that whatever they paid Blue Origin, they both felt that it was worth it.
Kristin Fisher, CNN, Launch Site One.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: With us now is Jamie Turner, Professor of Marketing at Emory University and author of An Audience of One. Jamie, welcome to the show.
JAMIE TURNER, MARKETING PROFESSOR, EMORY UNIVERSITY: Hi, great to be here. Glad to have -- thrilled to be on the show.
VAUSE: Great, good to be with us. Now, here is how many will best remember a much younger William Shatner.
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SHATNER: They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to.
Risk is our business. That's what the starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Yes, risk is still the business but it comes now with financial risks. You see space tourism companies, they're competing for market share of what is expected to be one or $2.5 billion a year industry.
So, I guess you know, who wouldn't want to travel into space on the rocket that Captain Kirk chooses to fly? Is that what we saw? Was that the message from, you know, what was essentially a very clever publicity stunt?
TURNER: Yes, well, there was publicity behind it. There was also meaning behind it. If you watch the interview on CNN with William Shatner right afterwards, he just had -- he was effusive with this thinking and thoughts about the blue sphere that he saw and how fragile it is.
But the real thing that we're trying to do is build interest in space travel. We're in the very, very beginning stages of it.
Bezos is a genius Elon Musk is a genius. Richard Branson is a genius. They're all looking to kind of build that interest so that over the long term, they can start something.
VAUSE: Well, you know, we know that William Shatner, he played this role of Captain Kirk for almost 30 years, but nothing as you mentioned, it could prepare it seems for the real experience of traveling to the final frontier, or at least the very edge of space. Here he is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHATNER: What you have given me is the most profound experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: He was literally in tears. He went on to say, yes, everyone should experience this. It's not exactly really for everyone right now, isn't it?
TURNER: It's not. The prices range from $20 million in auction for one of the first tickets, but now they're really saying it should be about 200 to 450,000.
Again, not necessarily something that everybody has in their hip pocket. But if you're a multimillionaire, you know, you might consider it. And over the course of time, of course, as with all products and services, those prices will drop, I could see in the next 10 years, it being a $50,000 ticket, maybe a $40,000 ticket.
Then you're talking about, maybe not ordinary Joes doing it, but a lot of people being able to afford it, and that will continue to drop over the decades.
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VAUSE: How similar is the space tourism industry right now where it's something of like a plaything for the very, very wealthy compared to like the early days of airline travel? You know, when it was incredibly expensive to fly on a plane?
TURNER: You know, in the early days of air travel, it was. It was -- it was very, very expensive. And it was only reserved for the very top echelons of socio economic status.
But now what we've got are things that are within reach. Again, 250 grand, a lot of money. But over the course of time, again, that's going to drop, drop, drop.
And in the future, within your lifetime, you're younger than I am. Within your lifetime, you're going to start seeing a lot of people going up into space, including to space hotels that are already on the blueprints right now.
VAUSE: Will we also be seeing -- I don't know, like, rocket capsules with sponsorship on the side? You know, this rocket brought to you by Pizza Hut or something? I mean, we saw that with the Russians years ago, but there seems to be like sort of a ban on marketing, I think because of NASA didn't want that sort of stuff in space, right?
TURNER: Yes, NASA pretty much early on had said, hey, we don't really want to commercialize space. We're here for science and things like that.
And that's why what Musk and Bezos and Richard Branson are doing is so interesting, because they're saying, hey, we'll defray some of our space cost by putting billboards up, doing all sorts of stuff.
PepsiCo actually had a plan to do a space bill pour -- billboard. It was PepsiCo Russia, and then the U.S. headquarter said, no, you're not going to do that, where it's too much of a space junk, there's a lot of space junk out there. And so, they put the kibosh on.
But the bottom line is, is in the future, we're going to see the commercialization of space, we're going to see a lot more marketing happening in space. And I think that's actually a good thing, because it can again, defray the costs and bring the cost of space tourism down as we move forward.
VAUSE: Just very quickly though, is there anything in place to regulate this at all? Or can people just do whatever they want if they've got the money?
TURNER: They can pretty much do whatever they want if they have the money in terms of the space marketing and all that stuff.
So, over the course of time, you might find regulations happening, but right now because of what all these guys are doing outside of NASA, there aren't any regulations.
Within NASA, they have regulations, but outside of that, there aren't really any.
VAUSE: It is the Wild West, 100 miles up. Jamie, thanks for being with us. We really appreciate it.
TURNER: Hey, great to be on. Thanks for having me.
VAUSE: Next up on CNN NEWSROOM, the Spanish government has almost $260 million ready to help the people of La Palma. One official says the islands' erupting volcano though show no signs of slowing down.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
[00:30:29]
Spain's prime minister is asking the people of La Palma for patience, saying rebuilding of the island cannot begin until the volcano stops erupting.
It's been streaming lava for almost a month now, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. Right now, 5:30 in the morning there, live images of the scene there on La Palma, the Canary Islands. We have more details now from Al Goodman.
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AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The volcano eruptions on Spain's La Palma Island show no signs of slowing down in the coming days. Spain's prime minister said Wednesday while visiting the island, that right now it's the northern flow of lava that's causing the biggest problem. It's the most fluid, also the hardest. That's what prompted officials to order evacuations of 700 to 800
people this week. That brings to 6,700 the total number of evacuees since the eruptions began three weeks ago on an island of 80,000 people.
It's also the northern flow of lava that caused a fire at a cement factory earlier this week, which prompted the lockdown of 3,000 people who live nearby.
That order was later lifted, but the authorities were trying to stay a step ahead of the lava, with the evacuation and lockdown orders on La Palma, which is one of the smallest of Spain's Canary Islands.
The Spanish government has approved $260 million in aid for La Palma to rebuild homes, businesses and roads. But as the prime minister said, none of that can't really get going in a big way until the eruptions stop and the lava stops flowing.
Al Goodman, CNN, Madrid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Almost two years after Brexit became a reality, and the U.K. and the E.U. are still arguing, in particular over Northern Ireland's unique trade status.
London remains unhappy over restrictions on movement of British goods, says the current protocols just don't work. The E.U. has refused to scrap the current arrangements, but on Wednesday, proposed creating a so-called express lane, for British goods destined for Northern Ireland.
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MAROS SEFCOVIC, VICE PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Indeed, we have completely turned our rules upside-down, and inside-out, to find a solid solution to an outstanding challenge. That involves the E.U. changing its own rules on medicines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Northern Ireland is part of the U.K., but remained within the E.U. single market after Brexit, to avoid the need for a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
Poland's Parliament has improved construction of a border wall with Belarus to try and stop the flow of migrants. Record numbers, mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq, have been trying to cross from Belarus into Poland, more than 18,000 attempts since August, says Warsaw, which saw lawmakers declare a state of emergency.
The wall will reportedly cost about $400 million, and it will include a monitoring and detection system.
The United States will ease restrictions at land borders for fully- vaccinated visitors from Canada and Mexico beginning next month. The U.S. has been limiting nonessential travel by land along its border since the start of the pandemic more than 18 months ago.
One senior administration official says increased vaccine availability and high vaccination rates factor into this decision.
CNN's Rafael Romo reports on how Mexico is reacting to the news. But first, we begin with Paula Newton, reporting in from Toronto.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. lifting those border restrictions was met with a great deal of relief here in Canada. No one thought the border would stay closed for 19 days, let alone 19 months when this pandemic started.
At issue now is what will fully vaccinated mean in terms of going to the United States. Here in Canada, more than one in 10 Canadians has likely what they call a mixed dose. So they might have gotten AstraZeneca, but then they may have gotten a Pfizer or a Moderna to follow that up.
Right now, they are waiting to hear from the Centers for Disease Control in the United States as to whether or not that constitutes being fully vaccinated.
Having said that, Canadians now can finally cross the border in November, again, if they are fully vaccinated. And that was actually met with a great deal of relief in the United States, as well.
It has those communities all around the border, from Washington state to Maine, that have been saying, look, Canada opened its land border in August. It is time for us to do the same. Our communities are suffering. Our businesses are suffering.
Many expect that there will be some wrinkles along the way in the coming weeks or months. The border is certainly going through some staffing issues.
But again, this will usher in a new stage of this pandemic, something many people on both sides of the border have been waiting for.
[00:35:03]
Paula Newton, CNN, Toronto.
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Families with relatives on both sides of the border could not be happier. Closing the border more than 18 months ago, meant people, even to the same family, were separated by the pandemic, and businesses on both the American and Mexican sides have taken a big hit.
According to officials, the reopening is thanks to a joint effort by Mexico and the United States to improve vaccination levels.
Mexico's health department announced Tuesday that 75 percent of the country's adult population, nearly 67 million people, have received at least one dose of any of the different coronavirus vaccines. And according to health authorities, vaccination levels are as high as
95 percent in places like here in the capital. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador reacted to the announcement of the border reopening, saying that it was the result of hard work made by the governments of both his country and the United States.
ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR, MEXICAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We're going to have normality on our northern border. Mexico has made many efforts and procedures with the United States government. There have been many meetings with the goal of achieving the reopening of the border, and at the same time, we decided to vaccinate in the border areas to help bring about this agreement.
ROMO: And let's remember that three top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, met with President Lopez Obrador, here in Mexico City on Friday.
The meeting was about a new bilateral security agreement, but there were other issues discussed, as well. The Mexican government announced last month that more than 3.8 million people who live in 45 cities on six different states along the U.S. border had been vaccinated.
Mexican Foreign Minister Ebrard says improved vaccination levels meant a faster border reopening.
MARCELO EBRARD, MEXICAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): The vaccination levels of Mexico, especially in the northern region, but also in the rest of the country, are very elevated or comparable with those of the United States. I will even say that there are cities in Mexico that have higher vaccination levels than those in the United States.
ROMO: President Lopez Obrador had pushed since mid-September for a full reopening of the border, given the improved vaccination levels.
American border towns were also pushing for reopening, because they have lost millions of dollars in the more than 18 months they haven't had any Mexican shoppers spending money in their businesses.
Rafael Romo, CNN, Mexico City.
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VAUSE: The streaming series "Squid Game," set in a dystopian world where those those in debt compete in deadly games, has become a global sensation. storm. All part of the global moment for South Korea.
But to the North, well, they don't really like what they see. Maybe it's a little bit too close to home.
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VAUSE: The streaming series "Squid Game," set in a dystopian world where those in debt compete in deadly games, has become a global sensation, with one notable exception: North Korea. It's been highly critical of the show. I wonder why.
CNN's Brian Todd explains.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kim Jong-un's propaganda machine seems to be throwing some heavy stones from its glass house. A North Korean website has seen fit to weigh in on the hugely popular South Korean-produced Netflix series "Squid Game," which depicts a fictional game show that has deadly consequences.
The North Koreans say the show reflects the sad reality of a, quote, "beastly South Korean society, where mankind is annihilated by extreme competition."
The website saying "Squid Game" portrays the South as an "unequal society where moneyless people are treated like pawns for the rich."
JEAN LEE, THE WILSON CENTER: They try to portray South Korea as this capitalist hellhole. And so this very much fits into the narrative that South Korea is this place where the people are just slaves to making money, that it's a grim existence.
TODD: "Squid Game" posted Netflix's most popular premiere ever, with over 110 million people taking a look. The plot: hundreds of people, heavily in debt, enter a game to win a huge pile of cash. One of the fictional characters is a North Korean defector.
The downside: if the contestants lose a game, they're killed on the spot.
LEE: All of that that we've seen in "Squid Game," reminded me, frankly, of North Korea.
GREG SCARLATOIU, COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN NORTH KOREA: It's about having no way out, being completely entrapped under extraordinarily adverse circumstances.
TODD: It is North Koreans who can actually be shot on sight if they try to leave the country. Like this defector, who sprinted through a hail of bullets as he made a desperate dash across the Demilitarized Zone to South Korea in 2017.
As for the North Korean website saying South Korea is a place where the poor are pawns for the rich and well-connected, human rights monitors say Pyongyang doth protest too much.
SCARLATOIU: In North Korea, 30 percent of children are malnourished. In North Korea, people are starving today. North Korea is imprisoning 120,000 people in political prison camps and in other detention facilities.
TODD: Human rights groups say the money North Korea could be spending feeding its people, it instead often spends on its military. This week, Kim Jong-un again glorified his newest weapons, with an elaborate exhibition and a speech in front of what North Korea claims is a hypersonic missile, a cruise missile, and a massive ICBM.
The event included a martial arts display, with soldiers doing flying kicks into blocks. The soldier inexplicably sprinting headfirst into a block. In one sequence, a bare-chested soldier breaks out of chains, spreads out a bed of broken glass, flies on it. A slab is placed on his chest, then smashed with a hammer.
Why would this not be enough for Kim's propaganda machine? Why use "Squid Game" to attack the South?
LEE: This is North Korea's attempt to show and express that, Hey, the South Koreans may be richer, but they are not happier.
TODD (on camera): This certainly isn't the first time North Korea has taken a shot at South Korean culture. This past June, according to "The New York Times," Kim Jong-un characterized the South Korean entertainment scene, including K-pop, as a, quote, "vicious cancer," corrupting the hairstyles, speech, and behavior of North Koreans.
Human rights monitors tell us K-pop has become increasingly popular in North Korea, with tens of thousands of North Koreans having access to it, almost exclusively through the black market.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. WORLD SPORT is up after a break, and then I will be back at the top of the hour. I'll see you then.
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