Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
U.S. House Approves $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill; Diplomat Found Dead Believed to Be Russian Secret Agent; Young Activists Demand More Action on Climate Crisis. Aired 12-12:15a ET
Aired November 06, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[00:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Michael Holmes, appreciate your company.
The U.S. House has passed President Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The motion is adopted.
HOLMES (voice-over): That goes, directly, to the president now for his signature. The final vote, 228 to 206, with 13 Republicans breaking ranks to vote with the Democrats. Six Democrats voting against the measure.
Still ahead, a procedural vote on the other major piece of the president's economic agenda, the nearly $2 trillion social safety net bill. Moderate Democrats have pledge to vote in favor of legislation, no later than November 15th.
Now the United Nations is calling for an immediate cease-fire in Ethiopia as joint rebel fighters, advance on the capital. The U.N. Security Council says, it is deeply concerned over the expanding and intensifying, military clashes.
Amnesty International warns, the country is on the brink of the human rights and humanitarian catastrophe. This, coming as Tigrayan forces have aligned themselves with eight other opposition groups in an attempt to remove prime minister Abiy Ahmed from power.
The government claiming it has little popular support.
The U.S. State Department, warning Americans to leave Ethiopia. And CNN's David McKenzie, with more, on the deepening crisis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's now a nationwide state of emergency in effect, across Ethiopia. That means adults can be conscripted to fight. The prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has also called citizens to take up arms against the threat from two now aligned rebel groups that this week threatened the capital, Addis Ababa, to the surprise of many diplomats.
Now the OLA and the TBF say they have no plans to move onto the capital and they're trying to pressure Abiy to step down a year and a couple of days after the start of this conflict.
I put the question to the attorney general of the Ethiopian government, just what it would take to sit down with the TPLF.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEDION TIMOTHEWOS, ETHIOPIAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: At the very least, the TPLF has to withdraw from Amhara and Afar regions, where it's brutalizing innocent civilians. It has no business, none whatsoever, being in this part of the country.
And at the very least, it has to withdraw from this part of the country, and it has to renounce the violence and offensives that it has been engaging in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKENZIE: This week, the United Nations and an Ethiopian human rights group said, all sides of the conflict have committed atrocities that could amount to war crimes.
Still, hundreds of thousands of people in Tigray, are in desperate need of humanitarian help. In Washington, D.C., representatives of Ethiopian armed and political groups, banding together to say, they want to push out Prime Minister Abiy, but the government called this a publicity stunt.
The international community is asking for an immediate stop to the conflict, a U.S. special representative, the envoy of the Horn of Africa is in Addis Ababa. And he has the task of trying to de-escalate the situation -- David McKenzie, CNN, Johannesburg.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: One person is dead, dozens, more injured, after protesters clashed with riot police in Iraq's capital. Night video showing riot police trying to protect the entrance to the green zone in Baghdad, amid angry demonstrators.
The heavily guarded green zone, housing government officers and Western embassies. Parties, supported by Iran-backed militias, protesting after losing parliamentary seats in last month's elections.
German authorities, reportedly, believe that a diplomat found dead outside of an embassy, in Berlin, was a secret agent for Russia's FSB intelligence service. According to "Der Spiegel" magazine, the 35- year-old fell from an upper story of the Russian embassy building but it is still, not yet clear how he fell.
[00:05:00] HOLMES: The Russian embassy didn't agree to an autopsy and the man's diplomatic immunity meant Germany could not carry out an investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOFER BURGER, SPOKESPERSON, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTRY (through translator): I can say that the German foreign ministry is aware of the incident; however, for privacy reasons, I can't give any further details about the case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: The Russian embassy released a statement on Friday, saying the diplomat's death was a tragic accident and speculation by Western media about the media is, quote, "absolutely incorrect."
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HOLMES: On the pandemic front, some encouraging news about an anti COVID pill, developed by Pfizer. The company says interim results of the trial showing that the drug was 89 percent effective in preventing in hospitalizations and deaths.
Unlike the vaccine, the pill would be given to people who are already infected, and they would take it at home. The pill, called Paxlovid, would be taken in combination, with another antiviral, ritonavir.
Now Pfizer says, it will apply for emergency use authorization in the U.S., possibly, as early as this month.
COVID cases climbing, in Europe. The situation only expected to get worse. The European CDC says infections, hospitalizations and deaths will rise for at least two more weeks. Hungary reporting over 6,800 new cases on Friday, more than the double the number from the middle of last week. Fred Pleitgen looks at how the pandemic has come surging back on the continent.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Europe fully in the grip of another surge of COVID-19 as new cases and new hospitalizations spiral, leading to a dire warning from the World Health Organization.
DR. HANS KLUGE, WHO EUROPE: We could see another half a million COVID- 19 death in Europe, in central Asia by the 1st of February next year.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): 500,000 lives on the line as the continent, again, is declared the epicenter of the pandemic. Europe has registered more than a 55 percent rise in new COVID-19 cases, in the last 4 weeks, alone.
The region is now home to more reported infections than Southeast Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, Western Pacific and Africa combined, the WHO says. The continent's largest economy, Germany, the latest country to break
records for daily infections, reporting over 37,000 new cases, in 24 hours. New records for daily infections were also seen in Greece, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia this week, serving as a dire warning for the rest of the world.
DR. MICHAEL RYAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We only have to look at the roller coaster epidemiologic curve to know that, when you're coming down the mountain, you're usually about to go back up another one.
And the fact that Europe is climbing that mountain again should really stand everybody up, around the world, saying, what are we going to do?
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The biggest threat facing the region, uneven vaccine uptake, the WHO says. Despite administering over 1 billion doses, immunization rates differ, dramatically, between some Western European states and their former Communist bloc neighbors to the east, where the WHO says, a lack of trust is fueling vaccine hesitancy.
In Bulgaria, Romania and in Ukraine, hospitalizations and deaths are surging. But the percentage of the population fully vaccinated, remains stubbornly low.
The World Health Organization is again calling on wealthier countries, to share vaccine supplies but some European countries are trying to vaccinate their way out of this latest surge, with Greece and Germany announcing that they will make booster shots available to their entire population.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Booster shots after 6 months should become the norm, not the exception.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Bracing for a long winter, 23 countries in Europe and Central Asia have now tightened restrictions in the past two weeks. But as colder weather descends and hospital beds fill up, Europe's leaders fear, tough months lie ahead -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Young activists, flooding the streets of Glasgow, Scotland, as the focus of COP26 shifts to how climate change will impact future generations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES (voice-over): Many are not impressed with the pledges made by world leaders, so far. Greta Thunberg, speaking at Friday's rally, calling the climate summit, a failure.
GRETA THUNBERG, CLIMATE ACTIVIST: This is no longer the climate conference. This is now a Global North greenwash festival, a two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah, blah, blah.
(END VIDEO CLIP) [00:10:00]
HOLMES: A bigger protest expected in the hours ahead. Our Phil Black now, with a closer look at the demonstrations.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the climate conference approaches the one-week mark, crowds of people are taking to the streets to maintain the pressure. This is the first big protest.
Thousands of mostly young, passionate, noisy people, who are not satisfied and do not have a great deal to gain from the process of the negotiations taking place at a conference center not far from here.
The first look at the conference has seen a flurry of deals and announcements, claiming to make significant progress and setting the world on the right track to a low carbon future from big deals to end deforestation, to cut down on methane to, even, embracing the possibility of low carbon steel by the end of the decade.
But they all, to some degree, contain caveats, weaknesses. They are qualified successes to the people watching here today and, indeed, for the science behind all this, that action simply not enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Climate criminals, coming through.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Understand, if it's not affecting you directly but it's affecting people all over the world. And it is so important that you stop it for our future because we're the next generation. We're the ones who will feel the brunt most.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The action just is not quick enough and not hard enough. You know, it is all good to see like we're going to save the forest by 2030. You stop cutting trees down now. I hope they try hard enough to try and -- I don't know if they will.
BLACK: This one is just a warm-up. Saturday will bring in even bigger protests, tens of thousands of people marching through Glasgow, demanding more than just qualified deals and incremental progress -- Phil Black, CNN, Glasgow, Scotland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: The chart-topping Brazilian singer, Marilia Mendonca, has died in a plane crash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES (voice-over): Officials say the Latin Grammy winner was on the way to a concert before her plane crashed in a rural region of the state of Minas Gerais. The four other people on board also died in the crash.
The state's police chief says it is too early to determine the cause of the accident. A Brazilian electric company says the plane hit one of its power cables before the crash.
Mendonca was only 26 years old. She is survived by her 1-year-old son.
Thank you for spending part of your day with me, I am Michael Holmes, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram, @HolmesCNN. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA," coming up next, I will see you a little later.
