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Australia's Labor Party Wins, Albanese To Be Next PM; Biden "Not Concerned" about Possible North Korean Missile Test; Ukrainian Civilians Refitting Donated Cars to Fight on Front Lines. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired May 22, 2022 - 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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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers all around the world, I'm Paula Newton.
Ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, a change at the top in Australia. Prime minister Scott Morrison concedes defeat, ending nine years of conservative rule.
The U.S. President Joe Biden making big economic news in his visit to South Korea but he can't escape those questions about a possible missile launched by the North.
And in Ukraine, new vehicles are helping fight the war. Civilians donating their cars to help troops on the front lines, defending their country from Russian aggression.
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NEWTON: And we begin in Australia, where voters ended nine years of conservative rule by ousting prime minister Scott Morrison's coalition government. Now Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese is set to be the next prime minister, though it is not clear yet if he will have an absolute majority in parliament.
Albanese will be sworn in with that new government on Monday Mr. Morrison's defeat amounts to rebuke of his conservative leadership style, which critics called more authoritarian than collaborative, especially during the pandemic. For more on this we want to bring in CNN's Anna Coren, following all of this quite closely for us.
And Anna, it really was a definitive shift, a definitive political shift, right?
Now what is to come now for this new prime minister and what kind of a mandate have voters given him?
ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, it is interesting, right. The polls had suggested that this was going to be a tight election but it looks like Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party will form a majority government. They are on track to secure 77 of the 151 seats in the House of
Representatives. They needed 76 and they have one more than that. Now Anthony Albanese, who is 59 years old, gave a very emotional acceptance speech, (INAUDIBLE) his longtime partner and his son.
He said that he would lead with unity and optimism and that his government would represent all Australians.
Now this election result, Paula, isn't necessarily about Australians embracing Anthony Albanese, who is a lifetime Labor politician but rather utter rebuke of Scott Morrison and his pugnacious, combative leadership style and a conservative government that has been in power, I should say, for almost a decade.
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COREN (voice-over): Meet Anthony Albanese, Australia's 31st prime minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, INCOMING AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Thank you for this extraordinary honor. Tonight, the Australian people have voted for change. I'm humbled by this victory. And I'm honored to be given the opportunity to serve as the 31st prime minister of Australia.
COREN (voice-over): Many down under were fed up with Scott Morrison, a leader many see as lacking empathy and integrity.
GRACE TAME, 2021 AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR: All Anthony would have to do is none of the things that Scott has done.
COREN (voice-over): With such a low bar, Albanese presented an option for safe change instead of appealing to traditional Labor values, like big spending on health and education or higher taxes on the wealthy, values that Albanese himself has long campaigned for.
ALBANESE: My whole life I believe that Labor governments make a positive --
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COREN (voice-over): Raised by single mother in public housing, Albanese is a working class stalwart of the party's Left faction. Many expected him to announce bold strategies on climate but instead he is keeping to what he says is economical: a 43 percent emissions drop by 2030.
That perceived lack of ambition has driven many voters to environmentally minded independents, who may still hold the balance of power after Saturday's vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the essence of democracy. This is -- a lot of people are moving toward independents, probably due to dissatisfaction with the current political system.
COREN (voice-over): As Australians get to know their new government, there is not long for the world to wait to find out more about Anthony Albanese. His first diplomatic test comes Tuesday at the quad meeting in Tokyo, when he meets U.S. President Joe Biden and other allies.
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COREN: Now as I said in that package, there has been a major shift also toward independents and the minor parties. It is being described as a tipping point as Australians really tire of that two party dominant system.
And yes, Anthony Albanese will be sworn in as prime minister first thing tomorrow morning, so he can attend that quad meeting in Tokyo.
NEWTON: Yes, all eyes on those meetings now. He will definitely be a rookie here at the table. Anna Coren for us following it, all really appreciate it.
And now to U.S. President Joe Biden who is wrapping up his first visit to South Korea as commander in chief. Right now is preparing to visit with American troops stationed there. That is before heading to Japan.
Now Mr. Biden met with the chairman of Hyundai, where he touted the company's plans to build a new electric vehicle plant in the U.S. state of Georgia. The $5.5 billion plant is expected to create thousands of new jobs.
The announcement comes as the Biden administration seeks to reaffirm not just America's security ties to Asia but its economic ones as well. On Saturday, Mr. Biden and his South Korean counterpart announced plans to expand joint military exercises in response to North Korea's growing nuclear threat.
Biden also left the door open for a possible meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With regard to whether I would meet with the leader of North Korea, that would be dependent on whether he was sincere and whether he was serious.
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NEWTON: Meanwhile, Russia's war on Ukraine also loomed large over the trip, with Biden saying the war is a security concern, not just for Europe but the entire world.
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BIDEN: Putin's war against Ukraine isn't just a matter for Europe, it is an attack on democracy and the core international principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
And the Republic of Korea and the United States is standing together, part of a global response that our partners and allies around the world, to condemn Russia's flagrant violations of international law and to hold Russia accountable and to support the people of Ukraine.
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NEWTON: For more on this, we are bringing in our Paula Hancocks, live for us in Seoul.
Paula, I know how you have been watching this closely, going to get your interpretation of this. We have that economic announcement, which will no doubt make people here in the United States quite happy.
He wanted to emphasize those economic ties. But we have pretty much headlined it in the script, right. There were major security issues and a beefing up of deterrence when it comes to North Korea.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. President Biden and President Yoon here in South Korea would have liked the headlines from the trip to be economic, the fact that there is a new Hyundai plant opening, up the fact that there will be a new Samsung plant, thousands of jobs in the United States.
That is the top line President Biden would have wanted. But of course, anytime you come to this neck of the woods, North Korea has a way of inserting itself into the headlines, into the top of the agenda.
Just this morning as President Biden was standing next to the Hyundai chairman, Kaitlan Collins actually asked him about North Korea and asked him if he was concerned that there were intelligence assessments that North Korea could be close to a missile or a nuclear test while President Biden was in the region.
He said that he wasn't concerned, that he was prepared, saying that, also, when it comes to what message he would have for Kim, the follow- up question from Kaitlan, he said, "Hello, period."
So he appreciates and understands that, when he comes here, this will be the main topic of conversation.
Now we did hear from him alongside the South Korean president on Saturday as well, talking about how they wanted to go back to these more significant military drills, these joint military drills between the two militaries, that we have really seen for decades here on the peninsula.
It is only in recent years that they have actually been scaled down or, in some cases stopped, with the former president of the U.S., Donald Trump, not wanting to rock the boat, as he was trying to enter negotiations with North Korea.
But what this means and what we have been hearing from both the U.S. and South Korean side, is that they are returning to more substantial and robust deterrence, talking about U.S. strategic assets being moved to the peninsula in a timely and coordinated manner as necessary.
Clearly both sides are preparing for any kind of response to what could be North Korea's seventh underground nuclear test, which officials believe could come sometime this month. They also believe an ICBM test, intercontinental ballistic missile test, could be imminent as well. That is really what President Biden was talking about today, saying they are prepared for any eventuality when it comes to North Korea. They have preparations in place, so he is not concerned.
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NEWTON: OK, Paula Hancocks for us with that update, as President Biden is now headed to Japan. Appreciate it, Paula.
North Korean state media are reporting that the number of COVID 19 cases in the country, referred to as "fever," declined by about 100,000 from the peak on Monday of 390,000.
CNN cannot confirm those, numbers but experts believe a recent military parade in Pyongyang may in fact have been a superspreader event. Will Ripley has that report.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mood was triumphant, the crowd massive, most people not wearing masks.
At last month's military parade in Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un promised to protect his people from hostile forces like the U.S.; protection from the virus that would soon ravage his unvaccinated population, nonexistent.
Weeks later, a devastating fever, believed to be undiagnosed COVID19, infecting and killing some of Pyongyang's most privileged citizens.
CHAD O'CARROLL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, "NK NEWS": The military parade was a superspreader event. And we know that they flew in citizens from across North Korea.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Some of those citizens from the Chinese border region, a place that I visited five years ago. North Koreans are living a literal stone's throw away from the raging Omicron outbreak in China.
Beijing pledged to help Pyongyang battle the outbreak, the Hermit Kingdom's hermetically sealed border apparently breached by the highly contagious variant; two years of pandemic isolation, two years of sacrifice gone in one parade.
O'CARROLL: That's the perfect Petri dish for this fire to spread. So I think that parade will go down in history as a very bad idea for North Korea.
RIPLEY (voice-over): A colossal miscalculation and, experts say, the likely cause of North Korea's explosive outbreak; an unprecedented nationwide lockdown, skyrocketing infections and deaths, a dilapidated health care system on the verge of collapse, lacking even the most basic of medicines and medical equipment.
Millions of malnourished North Koreans at higher risk of severe infection. O'CARROLL: I think it is going to test his leadership, certainly. And it's going to create some urgency for very creative storytelling in the North Korean propaganda apparatus.
RIPLEY (voice-over): North Korean propaganda crucial to keeping the Kim family in power, even during times of crisis, like the deadly famine of the late 1990s, when citizens literally ate tree bark to survive.
The Kims rule over a police state that relies on heavy surveillance, restrictive movement and brutal political prison camps.
LINA YOON, SENIOR KOREA RESEARCHER, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: They strengthen social controls because they had the fear that, you know, if there is an outbreak, if there is a crisis, that is what happened in the 1990s, that, you know, the police, the secret police, the military, they all went hungry.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Now they're getting sick, state media says around 2 million fever cases in one week; a crisis of Kim's own creation, a potentially devastating hardship for the North Korean people -- Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
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NEWTON: So a newly renovated cultural center in Eastern Ukraine reduced to rubble in a Russian missile strike. The mayor says the damage went well beyond the building you see there. Details just ahead.
Plus, Russia's war on Ukraine is impacting farmers in Greece, threatening production of a popular cheese made exclusively within its borders. That story and more, when we return.
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NEWTON: The Russian military is claiming it destroyed a large shipment of U.S. and European weapons in Western Ukraine Saturday. Now there has been no confirmation about the Ukrainian military officials in the city of Lviv (ph) say missiles struck a military infrastructure.
And in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military says Russians destroyed a bridge between Sievierodonetsk and a neighboring town. Now an official says losing the bridge greatly complicates evacuations, much- needed evacuations, in fact, from that area.
In the meantime, the Kremlin has officially barred nearly every member of the U.S. Congress, as well as hundreds of other people from traveling to Russia. The list of 963 people also includes former senator John McCain and former U.S. Defense official Melissa Driscoll (ph), who both died several years ago.
Turkey's leaders spoke by phone on Saturday with both the president of Finland and the prime minister of Sweden. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been the lone NATO member to publicly oppose Finland and Sweden joining NATO and has accused both countries of harboring Kurdish terrorists.
Now there is no indication that Erdogan softened his position after those calls.
And Friday's missile strike on a town near Kharkiv was even more damaging than that video shows you right there. Besides destroying the newly renovated cultural center, the mayor says the blast damaged more than 1,000 apartments and numerous schools. Seven people were hurt in that attack.
Now away from the front lines, ordinary Ukrainians are doing everything they can to support their country's war effort. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux caught up with one young woman, who has retrained as a mechanic. She now spends her time refitting civilian vehicles to give to Ukraine's army.
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SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN U.S. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Down a quiet dirt road in Lviv, this small auto repair shop looks like any other. But it is playing a vital role in Ukraine's civilian resistance.
It is backbreaking work, souping up this run-of-the-mill truck to head to the front lines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
Uliana Hileta, who normally works as a graphic designer, is planning to drive it to the front lines herself.
ULIANA HILETA, GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND VOLUNTEER DRIVER (through translator): Every trip is filled with emotions, full of hard work and also full of joy that I can be part of something bigger. I can bring at least some things that will make us closer to victory.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Uliana has been organizing car donations to the Ukrainian military since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. Now her efforts have been increased with five trips so far this year.
MALVEAUX: So you're by yourself for 17 hours in this big vehicle?
Petite as you are, are you afraid, are you concerned?
You are going close to the front lines by yourself.
HILETA (through translator): It would be strange if I wasn't scared, because everyone is scared about their lives. But apart from the fear, there is also love, which is always stronger. It is the love of our motherland.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Civilians here are desperate to help the army however they can, donating money to import as many cars as possible.
This truck, now painted and ready, is destined for Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine where Russian troops have been shelling relentlessly for more than a month, injuring and killing thousands of civilians and battering the Ukrainian forces.
Soldiers say donations like this have been invaluable, as they brace for a long conflict.
It is really unpredictable. Sometimes the car might survive for one or two months. But sometimes on the next day it can be under enemy fire and get destroyed.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): It is an 800-mile journey from Lviv to Slovyansk. And it is not just the car that Uliana will give to those fighting. The truck is filled with new uniforms, military equipment and lots of fuel.
As she packs, she imagines these supplies will help soldiers like her brother-in-law and other close friends, loved ones now fighting in the east.
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HILETA (through translator): We had coffee two days before the war began. Now they are on the front lines. But the fact that I can help the soldiers makes me less worried.
MALVEAUX (voice-over): Her treacherous journey hopefully paving the way to a free Ukraine -- Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Lviv.
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NEWTON: An American military flight has departed Germany for the United States carrying precious cargo: more than 130 pallets of baby formula. It is the first shipment of foreign baby formula under the Biden administration's Operation Fly Formula.
And it cannot get there fast enough. Americans are dealing with a nationwide shortage. They are scoring the operation's importance to the White House, the U.S. Agriculture Secretary will greet the flight when it lands in Indianapolis later on Sunday.
In the meantime, a famous and popular Greek cheese could soon disappear from supermarket shelves. CNN's Kim Brunhuber has our story.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From its picturesque shoreline, the island Naxos is a scene of quaint beauty. But the lifeblood of this Greek island is at risk, as its agricultural community suffers the impacts of the war about 1,800 kilometers away.
As the conflict in Ukraine drives rising costs of feed, fuel and fertilizer, farms on this island can't afford to maintain their livestock. They are forced to sacrifice their most precious assets. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I have had to start
slaughtering the animals that make less milk so that I can preserve the ones that make more milk. Otherwise, we can't feed them because the prices of animal feed are so high.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Now one of the island's most popular local products is at risk of disappearing, the famed graviera cheese.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): More than 300 cows have been slaughtered and more than 30,000 sheep and goats. And it's continuing. Milk production is down 7 to 8 tons a day and that could reach 10 tons a day. That translates into less of a final product, the graviera of Naxos.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): A hard cheese that takes its name from Swiss gruyere, Naxian graviera is protected by the European Union's protected designation of origin label, which means it can only be made on this island with milk from local livestock.
From Naxos, the distinctive cheese is exported to mainland Greece as well as countries around the world, including France, Germany, the U.S. and the UAE. But soon, the pale yellow wheels of graviera may disappear from supermarket shelves altogether.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Under these conditions, livestock breeding will end on our island. Farmers will be forced to end up slaughtering all the animals. We are disappointed. We are desperate.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): The head of the local agriculture union estimates total production of graviera could fall by 30 percent this year, as global prices surge.
The cost to import livestock feed into Naxos, for example, went up from about $70 last year to over $240, an insurmountable price increase for many Naxian farmers, which they fear could have a lasting impact.
The conflict in Ukraine creating an agricultural crisis on Naxos island, where a flagship cheese and farms that create it may one day be a thing of the past -- Kim Brunhuber, CNN.
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NEWTON: The final round of golf's major second this season is just hours away. Details when we come back.
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(WORLD SPORT) NEWTON: Thanks for keeping part of your day with, me I'm Paula
Newton, stay with, us inside the Middle East is next. At the top of the next, hour with more news.
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