Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Debt of Gratitude Keep African Leaders Silent; Aung San Suu Kyi Move to Solitary Confinement; People Fed Up of Rising Inflation; Airlines Workers Protests Due to Crisis; Bionic Limb Developed at MIT; Coach Save Athlete from Drowning; Ukrainian Forces Leaving Two Cities to Russian Troops; E.U. Accepts Ukraine's Candidacy Status; Donald Trump's Desperate Plot to Overturn Election Results Revealed. Aired 3- 4a ET
Aired June 24, 2022 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NICK WATT, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. You are watching CNN Newsroom. I'm Nick Watt in Los Angeles.
Just ahead, Ukraine's hopes of joining the E.U. get a huge boost, member states approve Ukraine's candidate status. We are live in Brussels in Kyiv with this major step for the war-torn country.
Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: What I'm just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: That just a small part of the shocking new public testimony from top U.S. Justice Department officials about Donald Trump's plan to overturn the 2020 election.
And why Myanmar's deposed leader has now been moved to solitary confinement ahead of her trial.
We begin in Ukraine whose military is apparently giving up on a city that they have been fighting over four weeks. Regional military leader says that Ukrainian troops will pull out of Severodonetsk, the site of brutal street by street fighting. He says that Ukrainian positions became unsustainable after Russian artillery raised much of the city.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has released this video of the ruling of battle just across the river in Lysychansk, showing burned out cars, blown up apartment buildings, unexploded rockets embedded in the street. Ukraine says the battle for these two key cities has reached a pivotal point.
Better news for Ukraine, on Thursday the European Union gave the war- torn country candidate status, President Zelenskyy says that the move is not only helping Ukraine, but also the E.U. itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I believe this decision is not only for Ukraine, this is the biggest step towards strengthening Europe that could be taken right now in our time in such difficult conditions when the Russian war is testing our ability to preserve freedom and unity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: Our reporters are standing by to cover all angles of this story, Salma Abdelaziz is in Kyiv, but first, we go to our international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson who is in Brussels. So Nic, this is big news, but there is still a long way to go before Ukraine will actually become a part of the E.U.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it could be a long time, we are talking about years, Poland took 10 years, and it was not at war when it first decided to join the E.U. and become a member. Thousands of pages of laws, 200,000 is the sort of closest approximation that people have of laws that are currently standard in the European Union that would have to be integrated into Ukrainian law.
That is a very heavy lift, and it's a very heavy lift for a country that is actually going through war at the moment. The European Union leaders, Ursula von der Leyen, specifically yesterday, the European Commission president spoke about the strengthening of Europe by showing that it could act with unity and relative speed to take these initial steps that these steps would strengthen Ukraine and Moldova, and Georgia in the face of Russia and Russian -- Russian aggression.
But the reality is for Ukraine that there are all of these different standards, whether it's in agriculture, for example, which we know is taking a complete pounding at the hands of Russian forces. Indeed, the European Union says that Russia is using food as a tool of war by attacking agriculture and stopping food exports.
So, in that area of course, Ukraine is very focused on trying to get what it can out of its field this year. Move on to crops that it grew last year. Try to get good wheat, cereals out of its ports, which are currently blockaded by Russia. And the European Union is pressing Russia to stop those blockades.
[03:05:05]
And the European Union is helping Ukraine to try to find ways to export that grain by other methods, overland, through Poland and onwards to world markets where it's needed.
So, you know, just take that one area of agriculture, Ukraine is much more focused on actually keeping its agriculture going, feeding the world, then it can be going into the nitty-gritty of European Union regulations on uses of fertilizers and modified or not modified crops all of those sorts of things.
I think that the underlying message from the European Union yesterday wasn't just that opening the door and giving some hope to Ukraine. But they're continuing the military support, continuing the economic support. Talking about another round of economic support to the value of $9.5 billion. So, all of that really designed to help Ukraine, but not able to speed that process of getting into the E.U. necessarily.
WATT: Nic Robertson, live in Brussels. And now let's bring in CNN's Salma Abdelaziz who is standing by in Kyiv. Salma, what's been the reaction in Kyiv to this candidate status for Ukraine?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, President Zelenskyy of course welcomed this announcement, describing it as a huge victory for the country and in many ways it's an acknowledgment of what President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government has been saying for some time now, which is that this fight, this battle against Russian aggression is not just for Ukraine, it is for Europe at large.
And President Zelenskyy has reiterated that time and time again, describing his country, describing his forces as the last wall against Moscow's aggression against President Putin's ambitions, really describing this as a larger fight.
So, this is an acknowledgment of that, one that they feel is long overdue. And it was just last week that there were three European leaders here, the Italian prime minister, the German chancellor, the French president. And President Zelenskyy has been quick to call out the divisions despite the rhetoric that you hear from European allies. The divisions within he feels they haven't done enough in terms of sanctions. He's been pushing for further sanctions, the seventh package, if you will.
He has been outspoken about the not outright banning gas and oil from Russia, particularly from Germany, he wants to see that happen. He has been outspoken about what he sees as President Emmanuel Macron being soft on President Putin.
So, this is a way to acknowledge that the E.U. wants to open the door to Ukraine. That it sees as a member of the European community and it sees its fight as one that's important for the larger region. Nick?
WATT: And, Salma, diplomacy in Brussels meantime fierce fighting in parts of Ukraine.
ABDELAZIZ: Absolutely. I mean, these are horrific street to street battles. And the reality of any conflict as you know is that many of those who are killed die where they are. They never get proper burials. And imagine that. Imagine that you never get the body of a loved one. You never have to bury them. You never get closure. That is the reality for thousands of Ukrainians looking for their loved ones. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABDELAZIZ: Inside each of these body bags is a John Doe, remains left in the ruins of war for weeks that are too decomposed to be recognized. But among them may be this man, Daniel Sofonov (Ph), the 28-year-old policeman who is among the fighters believed killed in Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant in early May. His sister is here to try and identify his remains.
"There was nothing left of him to recognize," she tells me, for a month and a half his body lay in the heat."
He said these were pictures that he carried with him from his son.
This is how she I.D.'d Daniel, drawings from his six-year-old son tucked in his pocket and somehow intact.
"I prayed to God every day that I would find him," she says, "the wait was unbearable, I feel calmer now that I can finally bury him."
Her relief is extremely rare. Authorities have set up a hotline so families can call in, report a missing person, and then they are asked to give a DNA sample. After that, they have to hope for a match.
Inside the morgue, the complex process begins. Tissue is extracted from a deceased. A piece of bone is often the only option. The samples are then sent to a lab where analysts work to build a DNA profile. Of the nearly 700 identified so far cataloged, about 200 have been paired to their families according to officials.
[03:09:56]
The chief forensic expert here is behind tens of those matches.
How long does it take you to find one match?
STANISLAV MARTYNENKO, FORENSIC EXPERT: Well, it depends on how many DNA profiles we have in the database. The more profiles we have, the more matches we make. I guess it will take some years after the war will end to find all the unidentified human bodies.
ABDELAZIZ: But there are families that will never get closure, some bodies are too damaged to collect sufficient DNA.
"We have parents who tell us, I understand, you cannot find my child but at least bring me some of the dirt that they walked on from Mariupol to bury," she says.
The unbearable agony of never laying a loved one to rest.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABDELAZIZ: Now we don't have an exact death toll on how many people have been killed in this conflict so far. And of course, this war rages on all along the eastern front claiming more and more victims every single day. Take that example of Mariupol, a place where people who were killed in their homes under the rubble of their city where many of them never able to be retrieved.
Ukrainian officials say that at times Russian forces in these occupied areas are essentially clearing the destruction without even trying to pull out the bodies. That story that you saw there the reason why those dead were able to come home, it was part of a body exchange, Nick.
Essentially, Ukrainian forces gave up the bodies of several Russian soldiers in exchange for Ukrainian soldiers. It's a very rare exchange when that happens. That means oftentimes for civilians there's very few options.
And the reason why it raises questions for these families, the reason they don't have closure, Nick, is because they don't know. Did that loved one die, or did they escape into Russian territory? Where they take him somewhere else? Have they simply lost contact with them?
It was really trying to see the agony of these families who aren't even certain whether or not their loved ones are alive or dead. Nick?
WATT: Salma Abdelaziz live for us in Kyiv. Thank you very much for your time.
Now to Washington and the stunning testimony detailing Donald Trump's relentless pressure on the Justice Department to back his baseless conspiracies and overturn the 2020 election.
Former senior Justice Department officials say the former president wanted voting machines seized, demanded that department to declare the election corrupt, even demanded an investigation into a bizarre claim that Italian satellites had somehow changed votes from Trump to Biden.
The committee also heard about an Oval Office meeting in which Trump said, that he wanted to fire his acting attorney general and elevate a junior, unqualified official to the role because he backed Trump's voter fraud conspiracies and efforts to overturn the election. Apparently, only the threat of mass resignations change Trump's mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONOGHUE: The president immediately turned to Mr. Engel, and he said, Steve, you wouldn't resign, would you? And he said absolutely, Mr. President, you leave me no choice. And then I said, we are not the only ones. No one cares if we resign. If Steven Engel go, that's fine. It doesn't matter. But I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, you are going to lose your entire department leadership. Every single aide will walk out of here. Your entire department of leadership will walk out within hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: The witnesses said that every time they refuted a Trump election conspiracy, he pushed back with yet another demand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEFFREY ROSEN, FORMER ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: At one point, he had raised the question of having a special counsel for election fraud. At one point, he raised whether the Justice Department would file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court.
A couple of junctures, there were questions about making public statements or about holding a press conference. The Justice Department declined all of those requests that I was just referencing because we did not think that they were appropriate based on the facts in the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: Now, I spoke earlier with former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. And I asked him if there is a reticence in the current Justice Department to bring criminal charges against Trump and his top aides.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: The foot soldiers themselves constituted the biggest criminal investigation in the history of the Department of Justice. They still haven't identified 350 of the marauders. So, that's been quite a undertaking. But now in the last couple of months there are grand jury's meeting specifically looking at officials.
[03:14:59]
We know that subpoenas have been served on some of the phony electors. And of course, just this week, the fellow who was going to take over, and in the DOJ, Jeff Clark and John Eastman both have been served search warrants. That means they are in earnest going down that path, that path ends with Donald Trump.
But you are quite right to point out Trump and his acolytes when we think of, you know, the analogy of Watergate. It's pretty significant in of itself if many of the president circle wind up facing accountability and criminal charges. That could well happen.
I think if that happens, the department has that and is honor bound to look to the end, and that means Trump, but that doesn't mean that they will charge him. Charging a former president would be unprecedented, and just provoke a lot of questions of what's in the best interest of the country.
But, you know, prosecutions take a lot longer than people think, especially people following the political cycle who would love the DOJ to come in and affect the midterms. They are moving in normal DOJ speed considering they started with the people on the ground. And that was itself a huge enterprise.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: Federal investigators are also looking into another part of Donald Trump's plot to overturn the 2020 election, the fake electors.
CNN's Sara Murray has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The Justice Department escalating its criminal probe into the fake elector scheme.
UNKNOWN: For President Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida, number of votes, 11.
MURRAY: Federal prosecutors are pursuing information in seven battleground states Trump lost in 2020 but where his allies put forward fake electors anyway to try to help Trump overturn the results.
DAVID SHAFER, FORMER CHAIRMAN, GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PARTY: The great state of Georgia --
MURRAY: Among those subpoenaed, Georgian Republican Party chairman David Shafer, sources tell CNN. The electors are recurring theme in the House select committee's January 6th hearings.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): We've seen how President Trump worked with, and directed the Republican National Committee and others to organize an effort to create a fake electoral slate, and later, to transmit those materially false documents to federal officials.
MURRAY: Congressional investigators laying out how the former president roped to the Republican National Committee into his plan.
UNKNOWN: What did the president say when he called you?
RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Essentially, he turn the call over to Mr. Eastman who then proceeded to talk about the importance of the RNC helping the campaign gather these contingent electors.
MURRAY: All while and his allies tried to convince swing state Republicans to supplant the electors for Joe Biden and make way for Trump. In Arizona, state House Speaker Rusty Bowers testified he got calls from Trump, Attorney John Eastman, and Congressman Andy Biggs.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): And what did Mr. Biggs asked you to do?
RUSTY BOWERS, ARIZONA HOUSE SPEAKER: He asked if I would sign on, both to a letter that had been sent from my state and/or that I would support the recertification of the electors. And I said I would not.
MURRAY: In Pennsylvania, a barrage of calls from Trump's attorneys to state House Speaker Bryan Cutler.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER DONALD TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: Mr. Speaker, this is Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, we're calling you together because we'd like to obviously the election.
JENNA ELLIS, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN LAWYER: Hello, Mr. Speaker. This is Jenna Ellis, and I'm here with Mayor Giuliani. MURRAY: In Michigan, a plan allegedly flooded by a Trump campaign
official for fake electors to hide overnight in the state capital.
LAURA COX, FORMER MICHIGAN REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIR: Michigan Republican electors were planning to meet in the capitol and hide overnight so that they could fulfill the role of casting their vote, I told him no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate.
MURRAY: Officials like Bowers, Cutler, and Cox refused to go along with team Trump's plan. But across the country, some 100 others complied. Signing bogus electors slate that are now the focus of a criminal probe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MURRAY: Now a number of these fake electors including at least one who spoke to the January 6th committee said they believe the so-called alternate slates of electors would only be put forward if Trump succeeded in his legal challenges. Of course, now we know that Trump and his allies barreled forward with this plan even when it was clear their challenges were not going to succeed in court.
Sara Murray, CNN, Washington.
WATT: Humanitarian agencies are scrambling to get aid to a remote area of Afghanistan. Coming up on CNN Newsroom, we'll hear from a UNICEF official about efforts to help those devastated by the powerful earthquake.
[03:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATT: It's two days now since a powerful earthquake devastated parts of Afghanistan. Conditions are so difficult that rescue workers are struggling to reach survivors and the official death toll is now have more than 1,000. Humanitarian agencies are struggling to get aid into the area. Many of the devastated villages are remote and very difficult to reach.
CNN's Vedika Sud is in New Delhi and joins me now. Vedika, what is the latest that you are hearing from Afghanistan?
VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Nick, I want to start with a couple of visuals and images that have been trickling in over the last couple of hours from the worse affected areas in eastern Afghanistan. Like you mentioned Paktika is in eastern Afghanistan, this is very close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and it's been severely damaged by the earthquake.
Now we have a visual from Gayan which is a district in Paktika. And we have visuals aerial footage of a village from there. What you see in the video that's been shared to us by IFRC is just rubble. Homes reduced to rubble, Nick. And that is all that remains of this village.
We do know that about 2,500 homes have been destroyed in the eastern province including Paktika. Now I also want to go to an image that has been shared by the UNICEF in Afghanistan, of this young man who sits on top of a pile of rubble, Nick. We don't know what his name is, we don't know much about his family if they survived this tragedy.
But this is the fierce of the tragedy unfolding on the ground there in Paktika, a word on the aid and how much of it has reached these areas. Well, we do know that humanitarian assistance and aid is trickling in to these affected areas, but it's a very slow response from the aid agencies for now.
They themselves are facing so many challenges, including the roads leading to these remote villages in mountainous areas. Also, what we do have to keep in mind, is that there is barely any coordination between these agencies and the Taliban.
International organizations have been hesitant over the last few months to really have a direct and open line of communication with the Taliban, because of which the rescue operations are also facing a setback at this point in time.
We're hoping to hear more from officials in the area, but largely, information is coming in from the international aid agencies who have also reached out to the global community at large for more support for this region. Nick?
WATT: Vedika Sud, live in New Delhi for us, thank you very much.
Now, last hour, I spoke with UNICEF representative Sam Mort. I asked her how difficult it is to reach those worst affected areas. And here's what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[03:24:57]
SAM MORT, CHIEF OF COMMUNICATIONS, UNICEF AFGHANISTAN: It's a very remote rural and mountainous region, we've been hampered by rain in recent days that's caused landslides of some roads. So, we know that we haven't reached everyone yet. And we also know that in districts such as Gayan and Paktika where 70 percent of the homes were destroyed, there is rubble that we still haven't excavated. We fear that there are people still trapped underneath that because the earthquake happened at 1.30 in the morning when people were sleeping. So yes, we fear that number will rise.
WATT: Is the Taliban capable of mounting this kind of recovery effort and also, how is the collaboration between the Taliban and foreign aid agencies such as yourself? Is that running smoothly?
MORT: Look, the de facto authorities undoubtedly have a limited capacity, but they were quick off the mark and on the morning of the earthquake, very early, they reached out to UNICEF and other U.N. agencies for support with the response. In particular, they wanted our teams to complement their teams in a assessing the needs in the affected communities. So, we've been doing that together. And we are working together in a coordinated way to now plan what the
next phase of the response will be. So far, all partners are working well together productively, and I think the speed of which everyone has worked has saved lives.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: That was UNICEF representative Sam Mort. Now, if you would like to safely and securely help people in areas hit by the quake who may need shelter, food, and water, please go to cnn.com/impact and you will find several ways that you can help.
Now, Russia has been cultivating relationships in Africa for decades which may help to explain why many African leaders are refusing to condemn Vladimir Putin's brutal invasion of Ukraine. A live report from Johannesburg is just ahead.
And in Ecuador anti-government protests turned deadly. And dozens of police officers are injured. Details after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATT: Russia's foreign minister is blaming Ukraine for not exporting its grain, saying that it's up to Ukraine to clear the minds that prevents international shipping from reaching its ports. Ukraine's ports have been blockaded by Russian since the invasion began in February, keeping some 20 million tons of grain off the international market.
[03:30:00]
Ukraine and its western allies are now looking to Turkey to help get the gain in supported as quickly as possible. On Thursday, a senior U.S. official said Washington welcomes Ankara's involvement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We are already working with allies and partners to try to help get this grain out of the country. As I said the other day, we know it's a perishable good, and it's an important good. And we have been able to increase the flow of some grain through the west by ground routes out of Ukraine.
Turkey is talking to Russia about this, we certainly we welcome Turkey's involvement in trying to broker some sort of arrangement where that grain can tran -- can be transferred by sea, but I think it just remains to be seen whether that's going to be viable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: Dozens of countries in Africa and the Middle East are heavily dependent on Ukraine's grain, and the blockade of Ukraine's ports is creating a potentially dire food shortage. Yet, many African nations are refusing to condemn Moscow's aggression,
CNN's David McKenzie joins us from Johannesburg to help us explain why. David?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Nick. And you would expect given what you are reporting about the blockade and the impact it could have on many African countries not getting the grain that's critical to their population that there would be wholehearted criticism of Russia from African nations, that hasn't happened. And it's because of Russia's hold on many countries on this continent because of decades of history and modern power politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCKENZIE: In the 1970s, Obbey Mabena made a choice.
OBBEY MABENA, UMKHONTO WE SIZWE VETERAN: We need to decide whether we want to continue living on our knees or to die fighting.
MCKENZIE: The choice he made with thousands of others to flee the violence of apartheid in South Africa. Train in clandestine camps scattered across the continent. Preparing to fight the racist regime back home. Like many African liberation movements, they found a powerful ally.
MABENA: We found that there is a country like the Soviet bloc that is ready to give us everything that we need. You know, they give us food, they gave us uniforms, they trained armor. Gave us weapons.
MCKENZIE: And they were Russian soldiers treating you with respect?
MABENA: With the greatest of respect. They came here, they were friends with us. For the first time, we came across white people who treated us as equal beings. Russia is our friend. Our friend's enemy is our enemy.
MCKENZIE: In Africa, that history colors today's conflict. As Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine unfolded, the west demanded a stark condemnation of Putin's war. Seventeen African nations refused to take that stand.
NALEDI PANDOR, SOUTH AFRICAN FOREIGN MINISTER: And the response we got was, you take it or leave it. And in the face of that arrogance, we thought the only decision that we could take was to abstain.
MCKENZIE: South Africa's foreign minister took another lesson from history.
PANDOR: Perhaps our colleagues in the west don't understand the fact that we are very wary of aligning to one position or another.
MCKENZIE: Are you disappointed that many countries aren't taking a stronger stance?
LIUBOV ABRAVITOVA, UKRAINIAN AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH AFRICA: I'm worried. I'm not disappointed. Worried that the countries that went for the history of struggle for human rights, democracy, sovereignty, territorial integrity now don't acknowledge or don't see for themselves the threat of the now colonialism that is basically happening in the 21st century.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Russia has signed military tactical cooperation agreement with more than 30 countries where we supply a large array of weaponry and hardware.
MCKENZIE: In recent years, Putin has aggressively courted African leaders, rapidly expanding diplomatic and military ties. And the shadowy Kremlin-backed Wagner group deployed its mercenaries to train militaries, and in some cases, fight insurgents across the continent. They're accused by human rights groups and the U.N. of multiple abuses. No matter what atrocities Russia is accused of committing, Obbey Mabena and many of his generation will still support Moscow.
MABENA: By default, we are on the side of Russia. And to ask Ukraine is, what we call is sell out. It is selling out to the west.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[03:34:57]
MCKENZIE: Of course, Nick, we are more than 50 countries in Africa. This is a very diverse continent. And there are some countries that are supporting Ukraine and its fight.
But I have to say that on the whole, many Africans I've spoken to and many governments are refusing to back Ukraine. They are ambivalent about this conflict, they both see the risks of going against Russia, and many of them have an emotional tie because of that very powerful history. Nick?
WATT: Fascinating stuff. Thanks, David, live from Johannesburg.
Now, how much longer can Britain's Boris Johnson bumble on in Number 10? Already riddled by scandals. Mr. Johnson's ruling conservative party just suffered two embarrassing election defeat, both byelections selecting new M.P.s to replace two Tories. One who had been caught watching porn in parliament, the other who was convicted of sex offenses.
Labour took the Wakefield seat by 12 percent, and the liberal Democrat won in Tiverton, and Honiton by a whopping margin. A short time ago the chairman of the conservative party informed the prime minister he is stepping down over the, quote, "poor results." And we just heard a short time ago from Mr. Johnson himself speaking in Kigali, Rwanda, he said, quote, "as a government, I've got to listen to what people are saying and to the difficulties that people are facing over the cost of living. Which is, I think, for most people the number one issue."
The prime minister refused to answer whether voters were influenced by the recent report which documented the culture of parties and rule breaking that existed in his offices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least four people have died in anti-protests in Ecuador. Thursday was the 11th day of demonstrations over crippling inflation and the government's state of emergency.
Stefano Pozzebon has the latest.
STEFANO POZZEBON, JOURNALIST: The protests are getting no signs of seizing in Ecuador where at least four people have died. Scores have been injured including at least 100 policemen since June 13th, according to the Ecuadorian authorities. This nationwide wave of protest has been led by the Confederation of Indigenous People of Ecuador or CONAIE.
It's been going on for over 10 days in the South American country. The protesters are demanding the government better subsidies to reduce the price of fuel and to regulate the price of food amid an inflationary hike. The government or President Guillermo Lasso has responded with reiterated calls for dialogue and has also declared the state of emergency in at least six provinces.
On Tuesday, the indigenous confederation presented a series of requests to reduce the protests and the marches. But again, including the partial demilitarization of the capital city, Quito, which has seen some of the worst clashes. But again, on Wednesday and Thursday marches had been reported all across the country and the police had to use tear gas to keep the crowds at bay.
For CNN, this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
WATT: There is condemnation from human rights organizations and age -- and aid agencies, excuse me, after Myanmar's military junta transferred former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to solitary confinement. The 77-year-old Nobel Laureate has been under house arrest since a coup last year, early Thursday she was moved to, quote, "separate confinement in prison to await her upcoming trial." She is being held on at least 20 criminal charges.
The United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar called for swift action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM ANDREWS, U.N. SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR FOR MYANMAR: The longer we wait, the more inaction that there is. The more people that are going to die. The more people that are going to suffer. And the people of Myanmar just can't take another year of inaction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: For more, we're joined by Will Ripley. He is standing by live for us in Singapore. Will, what is going on?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what's happening is that the people of Myanmar are suffering, and Aung San Suu Kyi is the most public and visible face here. She is now in solitary confinement, being moved from essentially detention inside a home, an undisclosed location where she at least have her dog, she had several of her domestic helpers with her.
Now she is by herself in a prison that has increasingly become more heavily fortified. And she is not alone. Some 14,000 pro-democracy supporters have been jailed and many of them are being held in similar horrific conditions, including more than 1,000 children are reportedly being held right now.
[03:40:03]
And so, this is -- this is not necessarily an isolated situation where you have one person being mistreated, you have, according to observers, thousands and thousands of people who are being held and convicted on trumped up charges.
These latest charges for Aung San Suu Kyi including corruption believed to be highly, highly unlikely to be credible, considering the fact that the people who are charging her are the ones who illegally stole the results of a legitimate democratic elections when they didn't like the result, because it causes them to lose power. And its loss of the cushy situation that many of the top officials have enjoyed for so many years under military control.
You have a public overwhelmingly who are deeply unhappy with the military leadership. And they are showing their discontent. There have been uprisings popping up throughout. And even though they're cracking down very harshly on protests, including the peaceful protests at the beginning of all this last year, people still continue to do what they can to try to push back.
To say that they are not going to except a return back to the dark ages, if you will, at a time that Myanmar's economy was simply starting to turn around. Things were starting to look up. Young people are educated, they are active on social media. The military trying to basically teleport everybody back. And the pro-democracy movement continues to persist.
But Aung San Suu Kyi who just turned 77 over the weekend and had to celebrate with a birthday cake with her lawyers, now an arguably some of the most difficult conditions that she's had to endure. And she spent many years, 15 years previously in captivity, most of that though under house arrest.
And yet, observers say that she was calm, she accepted this new situation and she's going to continue to fight against these, what are believed to be trumped up charges against her, Nick.
WATT: Will Ripley, live for us in Singapore. Thanks very much.
Still to come on CNN Newsroom, in Europe, workers frustrations are rising as inflation goes up and wages go deep up. Details after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATT: U.S. markets finished higher on Thursday after Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell wrapped up two days of testifying on Capitol Hill amid inflation and recession fears. We are a few hours away from the opening bell on Wall Street.
Let's take a look at U.S. futures. Dow Jones, NASDAQ, S&P 500 all looking to open higher. The trading day just getting underway in Europe. Some nice green arrows there. That's a good time. And trading in Asia wrapping up well into positive territory.
Now, people in Europe are facing a long and angry summer as the cost of summer keeps rising and wages aren't keeping up. Labor shortages and walkouts threatened more chaos for airports and travelers. And unions in the U.K. are gearing up for a possible national strike.
[03:45:07]
CNN's Anna Stewart has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: Workers in Europe are angry. Prices are rising faster and faster, but their wages aren't.
CORINNE MARTIN, CHRISTIAN WORKER'S UNION (through translator): The crisis that workers are currently experiencing in order to travel, go to work, live, it has become difficult to reach the end of the month.
STEWART: All flights were canceled at Brussels airport on Monday. A security staff joined a national strike for higher wages. And staff at EasyJet, British Airways, and Ryanair are all planning walkouts over working conditions and pay this summer, adding to an already chaotic situation for Europe's airports. And the holiday makers going through them.
(CROWD CHANTING)
STEWART: In the U.K., inflation just hit a 40-year high of 9.1 percent, whilst real wages are falling at the fastest rate in two decades.
FIONA CURNOW, PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER: Everything else is going up. You know, I'm struggling, I'm considering taking a second job on top of my full-time job just to make ends meet.
STEWART: Rail workers in the country just took part in the largest walkout in decades. And union leaders are gearing up for the possibility of a general strike.
CRISTINA MCANEA, GENERAL SECRETARY, UNISON: I would like to think that we can get there this year. I think each union has its own priorities, but I would not rule it out, that's for sure. And I think that the Tories and the government ought to be really worried about how angry people are today about what's happening to them.
STEWART: It's a delicate balancing act for policy makers. Raising wages to keep up with inflation could simply push inflation even higher, and what's known as a wage price spiral.
KEMAR WHYTE, SENIOR ECONOMIST, NIESR: Each employee will look at the situation and say, OK, my cost of living is increasing, if I'm supposed to get, say, a 5 percent increase in my salary, this might not add much to inflation but it will help me a lot with my cost of living.
So, these are all of the things that we have to contend with now bringing inflation down, but of course try not to add or exacerbate that squeeze on household incomes and to plunge the economy into -- into a recession.
STEWART: And yet, if the cost-of-living crisis is not tackled soon, another economic risk looms, more and more of Europe's workforce could soon be on the picket line.
Anna Stewart, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: This week on our Mission Ahead. We're introducing you to sciences and entrepreneurs on a mission to change the way we walk. It's something that many of us take for granted. But for people with physical disabilities this movement can require a lot more thought, if it's even possible at all. Today, we meet a professor who is working to change that and to turn human limitations into strengths.
CNN's Rachel Crane has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION & SPACE CORRESPONDENT: It's an unseasonably cool summer day in Concord, New Hampshire where professor Hugh Herr is out for a morning stroll at the vineyard he purchased in 2018.
HUGH HERR, PROFESSOR, MIT: I can really think clearly in such a natural environment.
CRANE: And outdoor since childhood, Herr says he has considered a prodigy in rock climbing by the age of 13. But four years later in 1982, he suffered a mountaineering accident that would change the trajectory of his life.
HERR: So, my legs were amputated below the knee due to tissue damage from frostbite.
CRANE: Frustrated by the crewed prosthetics he was given, the teenager set out to improve their design.
HERR: I developed this passionate return to climbing and began feeling the artificial limb as an opportunity.
CRANE: An imaginative mind bolstered by subsequent degrees in physics and engineering, capped off with a Ph.D. in biophysics led him to the MIT Media Lab.
HERR: In the Biomechatronics Group here at MIT, we develop wearable robots. Robots that attached to the body.
CRANE: It's here that the professor conceived and developed this bionic device and two others on the market today. Products that patients access through their insurance plans, Herr says. For each, Herr says it can take a decade of tinkering and testing including on himself.
HERR: This is the history of the ankles I'm wearing. And because I know technically exactly what's happening in the prototype, I'm very quickly able to debug, if you will. Amy, can you put your foot up?
CRANE: Today in the lab, two Ph.D.'s students are working with patient volunteer Amy Petrafeda (Ph) to improve the functionality of a new prototype.
KYUN GEUN SONG, PH.D. CANDIDATE, HARVARD HEALTH SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY: After we work on the flexor we're going to work on the extensors so that we will have a pair for her ankle control.
[03:50:00]
CRANE: Petrafeda (Ph) is one of around 40 patients who has undergone a procedure conceptualized by Herr and developed by surgeons, Herr says. Opposing muscles in the amputated limb are reconnected, reestablishing the neural link between the muscles and brain. At electrodes, and the amputee can control their prosthesis like a natural limb. Herr is now working on a technology that can improve an amputee's use of their bionic limb further by replacing the electrodes with magnets.
HERR: The signal that you get from those electrodes is very noisy. So, we want to put the technology inside the body with tiny little magnetic spheres that we used to track the precise movements of the muscles. And then we can communicate that to inform the exact movements of the bionic limb.
CRANE: If you think this sounds like the stuff you only find in movies such as "Star Wars," you might want to think again.
HERR: These concepts are no longer in the realm of science fiction. They are becoming science fact. It fundamentally changed how humans move, how we transport our bodies through space.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT: And startling images from the swimming world championships as well, an unconscious swimmer saved from drowning by her coach. We speak to that heroic coach after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WATT: Scary moments at the world championship swimming competition in Budapest on Wednesday. American artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez lost consciousness during her routine in the water. Thankfully, her coach saw what was going on and jumped into the pool to save Alvarez.
CNN world sports Amanda Davies spoke to the heroic coach on Thursday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORTS PRESENTER: What has she been saying
to you today having had a chance to reflect on yesterday, and of course see those pictures?
ANDREA FUENTES, USA SWIMMING COACH: The first thing that she told me, you believe it or not, it's like, she told me, in case you didn't know, I'm going to swim tomorrow. And I was like, wait. How are you first? Imagine how her mind works that she's like OK, what's next? You know? And I was like, we need to check with a doctor before anything so we are going to wait first, and then we will see if you can swim or not.
DAVIES: And so, just talk us through how it played out yesterday from your perspective. At what point did you realize that you needed to jump into that pool?
FUENTES: When I saw her feet were, when she was performing the last seconds, I saw her feet were a little bit more pale than normal. So, I was like, and then I saw her going down, and I immediately went. I didn't even ask myself if I should go or not, I just saw that. I wasn't going to wait. You know?
DAVIES: And one of those images shows your face very, very clearly whilst you are underwater with your eyes fixed on her as you are stretching out. What was going through your mind? What were you thinking at that point?
FUENTES: The worst thing is like, fix it. Not like I felt like I had to do something. So, the life guard arrived and then both of us took her out of the pool. I hear the heart rate was fine, I check while I was swimming with her, and she was, it was working. Not like the heart was on.
[03:55:08]
My only thoughts were like, she has to breathe. So, I was like, open the mouth and make her cough. And calling her like very strong for her to react. And then the (Inaudible)someone is gone you press very hard on the nail, so they will be like, wow! And then, I was like, OK, she's fine.
DAVIES: You mentioned the lifeguards and the medical team there, what was your take on their reaction? Should they have gone in before you? Should they have gone there sooner?
FUENTES: It's not that. I'm humble enough. I'm an Olympic swimmer and I know I can move faster than them in the water. So, even if we could swim at the same time, I was going to arrive before them so I don't blame them for that, because they don't -- they don't have the training as I do.
Normally I do ten hours of everything in my life swimming so for sure I was going to arrive faster than them, so that's one thing. The other thing is that they knew later than me that something was not OK. Because I know Anita very well and I know the sport very well, probably they are not just the world sport so they were like, she was just relaxing in the water until they saw me jumping. So, they saw something was wrong.
So, I understand them, they arrive very fast once they realized there was a problem. And they helped a lot with the vitals and everything, so they did their job, I did mine, everything is good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: The New York Racing Association just suspended one of the most famous horse trainers ever. The ban for Hall of Famer Bob Baffert is for one year, although he'll get credit for time served under temporary suspension. Baffert was already suspended by the Kentucky racing commission after his Derby winning horse Medina Spirit failed a drug test in 2021.
Dreams became reality for some talented basketball players Thursday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: With the first pick in the 2022 NBA draft, the Orlando magic select Paolo Banchero from Duke University.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WATT: Six-foot ten freshman Paolo Banchero went number one overall to the Orlando magic. Banchero started all 39 games for the Blue Devils and led all freshman in scoring.
Gonzaga's University big man Chet Holmgren went number two to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The first three picks of this year's draft where all freshman.
Thanks for your company. I'm Nick Watt. Have a great day. CNN Newsroom --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
