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Int. Org. Warns of Human Trafficking Risk Due to Refugee Crisis; Biden, China's Xi Speak Tomorrow for First Time Since Russian Invasion; ICC Prosecutor: "It's a Crime to Internally Target Citizens"; WHO Chief: Global COVID Spike Is "Tip of the Iceberg". Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 17, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:34:12]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: The U.N. says more than three million people have fled Ukraine in the three weeks since Russia invaded. Most of these refugees are women and children.

Their only belongings, what they can carry. In some cases, many cases, they are completely dependent on the good will of strangers.

Because of this extreme vulnerability, an international organization is now warning of a rising risk of human trafficking.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Poland where more than half of those three million refugees have fled for help.

Ed, what's being done to prevent this?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It's a very good question, and, obviously, something that's of great concern.

But as you're talking about how many of these refugees are depending on the good will, as we stand here in this walkway that is essentially seeing an outpouring of international support and goodwill.

[13:35:05]

There isn't anything that we have seen in the last few days that really kind of shows some sort of concrete effort, if you will, to safeguard against human trafficking, women being sexually assaulted.

Especially because that's the vast majority of the people we've seen here. Now what we have seen is efforts to at least alert people that they should be on the lookout for this thing.

There are signs in areas posted where refugees are coming through, giving people instructions on what they should do if they are to get into a car with someone offering them a ride further into Europe.

Things like take a picture of the license plate, send it to family. Take a picture of the person and driver's license and make sure all of that matches. That's the type of advice that many of the people are getting.

In a nearby shelter, they are asking drivers to register and to give their names and license plate numbers. But there isn't any kind of serious criminal background check or anything being done.

In fact, Ana, I spoke with a woman a few days ago who had brought down about 10 vans filled with supplies and she was hoping to offer rides to Germany to refugees.

And even she was telling me that it was incredibly awkward as herself, a woman, offering rides to other women. So she could imagine how a lot of these families felt if men were offering these rides.

It's something that's of great concern. But, you know, at this point in this situation, in this crisis, really the effort and the concern has been to move people quickly away from the border and that sort of thing.

So the expedience of moving people has taken precedent over really safeguarding and putting in all of the safeguards that would ideally be put in place to protect these refugee women and children from this danger -- Ana?

CABRERA: They have such a journey, such a journey still ahead.

Ed Lavandera, thank you for your reporting.

Days after we learned Russia asked China for support in its attacks on Ukraine, President Biden will hold critical talks with President Xi Jinping for the first time since this war started. Stay with us.

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[13:42:03]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Critical meetings as Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukraine. President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak tomorrow.

It will be their first known conversation since the invasion of Ukraine began.

I want to get right to Kaitlan Collins who is at the White House.

This comes as officials tell CNN the U.S. has information suggesting China may be open to providing Russia with some military and financial help they've asked for.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and that is what's going to make this conversation, Anderson, so fascinating because it is the first time they've spoken since this invasion started.

We know that Russian officials gave top Chinese officials a heads-up about the invasion.

But the question of where this conversation goes is so critically important.

And it comes after President Biden's top national security aide spent seven hours in an intense meeting in Rome with a top Chinese diplomat in recent days. That's where we think this call that's happening tomorrow came about.

We should also note it's just unusual for the White House also to telegraph these calls in advance. Often, with world leaders they wait until the call has happened. They let you know and give you a read out.

With China, they treat it a little bit differently. They're giving us a heads-up this call is expected to happen tomorrow.

Not a ton of details on what the conversation is going to be about. But we know the invasion of Ukraine will be a big part of this.

There's a lot of important context coming into this call, which is, one, White House officials have been critical of Chinese officials in recent days.

Because they say they've helped bolster these Russian conspiracies that they believe were being put out there and amplified because Russia was laying the groundwork to conduct a chemical weapons attack.

It comes after what I just said, Chinese officials did get a heads-up about the Russian invasion.

Though officials have said they're not sure if the Chinese officials knew exactly the extent of what this invasion was going to look like.

Of course, Anderson, most critically, they talked about this request that Russia has made to China for military equipment and economic assistance amid the crippling sanctions that they're facing as the White House has warned there will be consequences if China provides that help.

COOPER: Kaitlan Collins, at the White house. Thank you, Kaitlan.

This just in. A Human Rights Watch report now says cluster munition rockets were used on three separate occasions by Russian forces to attack the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

Yesterday, I spoke with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court who was in Ukraine to start his investigation to look into it.

I asked him if he thinks alleged war crimes have been committed. Here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: You have reasonable grounds to believe that alleged war crimes, alleged crimes against humanity have been committed?

KARIM KHAN, CHIEF PROSECUTOR, INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT: Yes. Absolutely. And one thing is clear, the law is clear on this, it is a crime to intentionally target civilians. It's a crime to intentionally target civilian objects.

Now, of course, there has to be further investigation whether civilian objects were used and they were legitimate targets. But even then, it's no license to use cluster bombs or use disproportionate attacks in concentrated civilian areas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining us now is David Scheffer, the former U.S. ambassador- at-large for war crimes issues. And he's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

[13:45:07]

David, how hard a job do you think Mr. Khan will have in trying to find the chain of command for any war crimes or crimes against humanity that have been committed here?

DAVID SCHEFFER, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS & FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR WAR CRIMES ISSUES: First, that was an excellent interview you had with him yesterday and very, very helpful.

The difficulty for Karim Khan will not be that difficult with respect to the top-down character of this war of aggression.

It's clear that Vladimir Putin is in control. He has superior responsibility. He has a group of generals who are clearly exercising command responsibility for what is the crime of aggression overall. The assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

That is a very large context within which Karim Khan can say, yes, there's an illegal assault on the territory of Ukraine.

And within that context the Russian military is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It will take time to identify the specific link between a specific site and a particular general or officer.

But when it comes to Mr. Putin himself, he basically has incriminated himself already. He's not acting as a superior should under international law. Neither is he stopping the further commission of these war crimes. He is also not identifying anyone that he's punishing for the

commission of them.

So I think, for Karim Khan, it's a bit easier for the top-down. It will take a longer amount of time for him to build cases in the lower ranks.

COOPER: One thing he stresses, he's an apolitical actor in this. It's his job to look at all sides in a conflict to see if any crimes have been committed by any side.

That being said, it is clear, you know, just from watching images on television, we see what clearly appear to be war crimes are occurring, civilian locations being directly hit.

It's his job, though, however, to figure out not just was that really a civilian structure, was there no other military forces, perhaps using it in some way, occupying a church to fire on others.

And also figuring out the people responsible behind it. It's not enough for them to say there are war crimes but who is responsible for them.

SCHEFFER: Right. And that's the distinction between what Karim Khan has, as a prosecutor investigating these atrocity crimes.

And what someone like President Biden and government officials are focused on, which is we need to stop this war. We need to prevent the further commission of this -- of these crimes.

And, quite frankly, it's obvious, it's self-evident that these crimes are being committed by the Russian military.

And who is controlling the Russian military? It's Vladimir Putin, who, on February 24th, initiated an illegal war of aggression.

So it's perfectly appropriate, in my view, for the president to identify Putin as a war criminal.

COOPER: David Scheffer, I really appreciate talking to you. Thank you for talking about your experience. Appreciate it.

Let's go back to Ana in New York.

CABRERA: Fascinating conversation.

Thanks, Anderson.

We're also tracking another potential COVID surge. Other nations are seeing a spike in new infections. So what does it mean for the U.S.? That's next.

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[13:50:08] CABRERA: Welcome back. The World Health Organization is reminding people that the pandemic isn't over. Cases here in the U.S. are low, but experts are sounding the alarm on new infections worldwide.

Look at what's happening right now in Asia. South Korea has broken its record for new daily cases twice this week.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us now.

Elizabeth, should we brace?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, I don't think we necessarily need to brace for, say, what's happening in South Korea.

But it is a concern, and the concern, Ana, is about something called the BA.2 Omicron subvariant. It's a subvariant of a variant.

Let's look at what this subvariant does. It's not a nice one. It's 80 percent more transmissible than Omicron. That's saying a lot.

And 23 percent of new infections last week in the U.S. were BA.2, were this subvariant. And 14 percent the previous week. That's a big jump. It was only 14 percent two weeks ago and it was 23 percent last week.

Now let's take a look at places where there's even more of this BA.2. Take a look at that green line. That's Hong Kong. They have quite a bit of BA.2. And you can see what their cases have done.

The U.K. also has quite a bit of BA.2, more than the U.S. does, and you can see what their cases have done.

Part of the problem in the U.S. is that seniors, who, of course, we know are so vulnerable to COVID-19, a lot of them have not gotten their third shot, even though there's been so much messaging about this.

In the U.S., 60 percent of seniors have gotten the third shot. In the U.K., that's 81 percent.

And the concern also, Ana, is that, when you look at that 40 percent of seniors who haven't had a third shot, for a lot of them, that second shot was a long time ago, maybe even a year ago or even more.

[13:55:00]

That's a long time. And so it's all the more reason why seniors need to get that third dose.

And we know that Pfizer has proposed giving them a fourth dose as well. That's in front of the FDA right now -- Ana?

CABRERA: OK, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for that update.

That does it for us today. Thank you for being with us. You can always join me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera. In the meantime, our breaking news coverage continues right here on

CNN after a quick break.

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