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Sri Lanka's Under Worsening Chaos; President Biden Kicked Off for Mid-East Trip; Mexican President Met with President Biden; Leaked Video Outrage Uvalde Parents; January 6th Committee Laser-Focused on Militia Group's Communication; GOP Invites Viktor Orban. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired July 13, 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)
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. You are watching CNN Newsroom, and I'm Rosemary Church.
Just ahead, Sri Lanka's president flees the country and now tear gas is being fired outside the prime minister's office. A live report on the chaos.
Plus, leaked video of a deadly school shooting in Texas is raising new questions about how police responded.
And another day of dramatic developments in the January 6th hearings, a closer look at the Trump team's links to right wing militia groups.
UNKNOWN: Live from CNN center, this is CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church.
CHURCH: Good to have you with us. Well, Sri Lanka's political crisis is worsening by the hour. We have just learned the prime minister has ordered the defense ministry to declare a state of emergency and order a curfew in the country's western province, which includes the capital after police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protestors outside the prime minister's office.
Some were seen trying to storm the office barriers earlier, shouting that Sri Lanka's leaders are trying to flee the country and that they, quote, "must not be spared."
All of this comes just hours after Sri Lanka's president fled for the Maldives amid his country's economic collapse. Protestors have demanded the formal resignations of both the president and prime minister, but now there's some question as to whether the prime minister will indeed step down.
So let's turn to CNN's senior international correspondent, Will Ripley. He is following developments for us from his vantage point there in Taipei. Good to see you again, Will. So the president has fled the country, but now there are new developments regarding the prime minister's likely next move. What is going on here?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we're seeing is what some observers have feared, which is that the president has not formally resigned today, as he said he would, instead he jumped on a military aircraft and got a last minute exemption to land in the Maldives where he's hiding out now in, you know, basically, an island paradise while chaos is ensuing in Colombo, which he left behind without tendering a formal resignation.
You have the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe who had said that he was going to resign after a new all party government was formed. But now, he can -- he essentially, because the president has left the country and is in exile, he's now going to become the acting president. He can take his oath as president because he's now declared this state of emergency, and a curfew to try to limit the ability of protestors to hit the streets and express their discontent.
And now you have police being ordered to arrest people and they're using water cannons and they're using tear gas against people. And so, while there was this kind of power of the people theme that began over the weekend when the president's residence, official residence was occupied and is still occupied. And the prime minister's official residence was set on fire.
People, you know, showing -- you know, showing themselves on social media in the swimming pool and working out at the gym playing the grand piano, you know -- you know, basically taking over the people's house and sending a very strong message to the government.
Well, now, the government, which is not following through on what they said they would do in terms of these two high-profile resignations, you have a president with no official resignation. You have a prime minister who's now going to become an acting president ordering the police and military to suppress the protestors.
Where is this headed? Not anywhere good, you know, is the concern, Rosemary, and on top of all of this you still have, of course the huge, huge financial hole that Sri Lanka is in and no -- no obvious exit ramp, no progress in discussions with the IMF or about any sort of bailout because Sri Lanka's more than $50 billion in debt and can't even pay its creditors.
Can't get food, can't get fuel, can't get medicine, which is why protestors have been hitting the streets in the first place, because they've been suffering for so long. They've been calling for resignations for so long. And now, here we are kind of once again, potentially approaching some sort of new climax in violence between protestors and police and the government and the prime minister digging in his heels.
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CHURCH: Yes, and we are watching these live pictures as all of this plays out. And of course, as you mentioned, a country in economic turmoil and no understanding at this juncture where it goes from here.
So, Will Ripley joining us live from Taipei, keeping a very close eye on the situation on the ground there in Sri Lanka. I appreciate it.
Well, Joe Biden arrives in Israel today for his first visit to the Middle East as U.S. president. He plans to lay a wreath at a Holocaust Memorial. Get a briefing on the Iron Dome missile defense system and meet with the new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Now, on Friday, he will visit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. After that, Mr. Biden travels to Saudi Arabia for the most controversial leg of his trip. As a candidate for president, he pledged to make Saudi Arabia a pariah for its involvement in the murder of journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
So let's go live now to Jerusalem and to journalist Elliott Gotkine, he joins us now. So Elliott, what can we expect to come out of Joe Biden's first trip to the region as U.S. president?
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Rosemary, I suppose, just to quickly summarize a few what we won't get out of this trip. We won't expect and we won't see any resuscitation of the more bound peace process with the Palestinians. We won't see an normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And we won't really see any meaningful moves from their current positions of the Israelis or the Americans, vis-a-vis, the Iran nuclear deal.
What we will see though is a number of things. First of all, we'll see Yair Lapid and President Isaac Herzog meeting President Biden as he disembarks from his plane at Ben-Gurion airport just outside Tel Aviv. They've commandeered pretty much half the airport for the purposes of this trip.
He'll then get a demonstration as you said of Israel's missile defense capabilities not just the Iron Dome system that we've seen put to use so many times, both in the north of Israel and also in the rest of Israel in terms of shooting down rockets and projectiles from the Garza strip and coming from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But also, Iron beam. The recently announced laser missile defense system. The idea being that it will protect not just Israel from threats such as Iran and its proxies, but also its new friends in the region and its allies, such as Morocco, Bahrain, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and also even the Saudis.
Now of course, Israel it doesn't have diplomatic or normalized relations with the Saudis. Senior Israeli officials describe the current relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia as fragile and delicate, but they are hoping that this trip will be, perhaps kickstarting the roads towards normalization that these baby steps, some baby steps will be taken to improve in the relationship between the two countries.
So, for example, we're expecting an announcement that will enable Israeli flights to fly over Saudi territory. And that Muslims leaving Israel will be able to fly directly to the kingdom to take part in the Hajj pilgrimage. Those just a few of the things that we should expect from President Biden's visit, which kicks off this afternoon. Rosemary? CHURCH: All right, Elliott Gotkine joining us live from Jerusalem, many thanks.
Well, before he left for the Middle East President Biden welcomed his Mexican counterpart, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to the White House.
CNN's Matt Rivers has details now from Mexico City.
MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the last time we were mentioning both President Biden and President Lopez Obrador in the same story in the same headline was when Lopez Obrador chose to not go to the United States.
That would be, of course, when he snubbed then host President Biden who was hosting the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles just as a few weeks ago. And Lopez Obrador chose not to go to that meeting. This time, though, he did choose to go to the United States. This time going to Washington, D.C., under a cloud of what many people would call a frosty relationship between the United States and Mexico in recent years.
Both men appeared together in the Oval Office with Lopez Obrador talking at length for an uninterrupted period of somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes, giving multiple repeated historical references, and talking about the relationship between the United States and Mexico, but also talking about more current issues, things like migration, for example.
We have seen huge numbers of migrants coming from all across the Western hemisphere going up through Mexico, arriving at the U.S.- Mexico border. And Lopez Obrador said that one of the ways that he believes that migrant flows can be lessened, that there could be more orderly migration would be is if the United States provides more labor pathways.
He's basically talking about the United States increasing the amount of work visas it issues in industries not only in the agricultural fields, but also in other areas as well. President Biden also acknowledging that he would want to increase work visas if he could. But he said that it's a very difficult political issue in the United States, given how stymied the U.S. Congress can be on that issue. Another issue that both men were expected to have talked about human trafficking.
[03:10:01]
A senior U.S. official telling CNN that one of the things the U.S. wants to see is increased prosecutions here in Mexico, not just arrests of people who are involved in the massive human trafficking industry that plays such a big role in migration, but also just moving forward with prosecutions.
That's something that Mexico has not done effectively over the years. So that too, a topic of conversation between both men. President Lopez Obrador also talking about gas prices saying that gas is actually a little bit lower in Mexico, saying that they've seen more Americans cross over from the U.S. to Mexico in search of lower gas prices. We can only be seen as a small dig against the U.S. president.
Matt Rivers, CNN, Mexico City.
CHURCH: The race to replace Boris Johnson as British prime minister is down to eight candidates. Conservative lawmakers will cast their first ballots in the leadership contest today. Successive votes will whittle the field down to the final two. And the new leader is expected to be announced on September 5th.
But the opposition Labour Party wants Johnson out as soon as possible. They are planning a confidence vote today. A Downing Street spokesperson says it can go forward if it removes references to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and mentions only the British government.
Well, the parents of victims from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas are outraged over the leak of surveillance video showing what was happening inside Robb Elementary as the massacre unfolded. The Austin American Statesman newspaper published edited portions of the video that reveal the police response during the May shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
CNN's Rosa Flores has the story. A warning, though, the footage is very disturbing.
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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An edited version of surveillance video, one of two videos released Tuesday by the Austin American Statesman shows that at 11.32 on May 24th, the first shots were fired outside Robb Elementary School, an audio of a teacher calling 911.
UNKNOWN: The kids are running. My God. Get down! get in your rooms! get in your rooms!
FLORES: Then at 11.33 school surveillance video shows the gunman entering an empty hallway, unhindered, walking casually with his gun hanging down. He slows down peaks around a corner. A boy sees him as he starts shooting and the boy runs.
According to the Statesman, the gunman fired his weapon, an AR-15 inside two classrooms for two and a half minutes, stopping and starting multiple times. The Statesman saying they edited out the most disturbing sounds, including screams.
The surveillance video shows seven police officers arriving armed, some with rifles. They entered the hallway. Weapons drawn at 11.36 just three minutes after the gunman arrived while shots are being fired. In total, the material revealing just over two of the more than 70 minutes police were in the hallway before killing the gunman. Some rushing towards the classrooms, other officers hanging back.
Within one minute, shots are heard, 16 rounds in total, and police can be seen retreating, running back down the hallway to take cover. Then at 11.52, 19 minutes after the gunman enters the school, the timestamp on the video shows more officers arriving, heavily armed, some with ballistic shields. Still, they wait.
At 12.04, the video jumps 31 minutes after the gunman enters the school and law enforcement is still waiting. At least 19 officers are now in the hallway according to the official timeline. At 12.21, 45 minutes after police arrived, the gunman fires another four shots and police start to move down the hallway again, remaining outside the classrooms.
At 12.30, one officer uses the hand sanitizer dispenser in the school. At 12.43 and 12.47 more 911 calls to send police. And the caller says children are aware the police are outside the door. Then at 12.50, 74 minutes after police first arrived, officers breached the classroom door and kill the gunman. At this point, the video shows officers in the hallway pushing to go in.
The Texas DPS director expressed his disappointment. The video was released before the victim's families were given access to it. Releasing a statement, saying those most affected should have been among the first to see it.
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The Statesman defending their decision to publish the material saying, quote, "we have to bear witness to history and transparency and unrelenting reporting is a way to bring change."
As for the families of the 19 students and two teachers who were massacred at Robb Elementary, some say the videos early release just adds to their pain.
JAVIER CAZARES, FATHER OF UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM: It got leaked. It got shown all over the world and we are pissed. These families didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it. That's a stop to our baby's faces and we're tired of this, you know, we can't trust anybody no more.
FLORES: Rosa Flores, CNN, San Antonio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Just horrifying. And still ahead on the program, dramatic new revelations from Tuesday's January 6th committee hearing, including an accusation that President Trump himself attempted to contact a witness. We will have a report from Washington.
Plus, as Ukraine ramps up counter attacks on Russian held territory to the south, the death toll is still rising from a brutal Russian attack in the east. We're back with that and more in just a moment.
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CHURCH: New bombshells from the January 6th committee's latest hearing it focused on ties between the Trump team and far right militia groups. Also revealed, details about a White House meeting where tempers and egos clashed among competing advisors to the president. Ryan Nobles reports from Washington. And viewers should be aware some
testimony contains profane language.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The January 6th select committee used their seventh public hearing to build a case that Donald Trump had a plan to call his supporters to Washington to March on the capitol and stand in the way of certifying the 2020 election.
One witness, Stephen Ayres, who has since pleaded guilty to entering the capitol illegally said he answered Trump's call.
STEPHEN AYRES, BREACHED CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH: We didn't actually plan to go down there. You know, we went basically to see the Stop the Steel rally, and that was it.
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL), JANUARY 6 SELECT COMMITTEE: So why did you decide to march to the capitol?
AYRES: Well, basically, you know, the president, you know, got everybody riled up, told everybody ahead on down. So we basically just following what he said.
NOBLES: The committee unveiling never before seen depositions and communications among Trump insiders, showing that the former president ignored the advice of his own advisors, and instead leaned on the council of election deniers like Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Rudy Giuliani.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: I'm going to categorically describe it as, you guys are not tough enough, or maybe I put it another way. You're a bunch of pussies. Excuse the expression, but that that's, I -- I'm almost certain the word was used.
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NOBLES: The committee arguing Trump knew he lost the election but was driven to overturn the results anyway.
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.
NOBLES: A drive that led to a raucous meeting at the White House in the middle of December when Trump wanted to name attorney Sidney Powell as special counsel in order to seize voting machines.
SIDNEY POWELL, FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: The president said, OK, you know, I'm naming her of that. And I'm giving her security clearance.
NOBLES: Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone testifying that he was displeased to see people like Powell and Flynn in the oval Office and told Trump naming Powell special counsel was a grave mistake.
PAT CIPOLLONE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: The federal government seize voting machines. That's a terrible idea for (Inaudible). That's not how we do things in the United States. There's no legal authority to do that. I don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice. And so I didn't understand how they had gotten in.
NOBLES: Cipollone also describing his frustration dealing with people who couldn't produce any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
CIPOLLONE: A disregard, I would say a general disregard for the importance of actually backing up there to say with facts.
NOBLES: Afterward, Trump shifting gears, but not backing down from his pursuit of pushing election lies, tweeting the next day an invitation to his supporters to descend on Washington on January 6th.
MURPHY: Be there, we'll be wild, the president wrote.
NOBLES: The committee also presenting a draft tweet obtained from the National Archives showing Trump planned before January 6th to tell his supporters, please arrive early, massive crowds expected march to the capitol after.
This, despite members of Trump's cabinet and inner circle testifying that they told Trump he lost the election and he should concede to Biden after the Electoral College met in mid-December.
EUGENE SCALIA, FORMER U.S. LABOR SECRETARY: I conveyed to him that I thought that it was time for him to acknowledge that President Biden had prevailed in the election.
CIPOLLONE: If your question is that I believe he should concede the election at a point in time, yes, I did.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBLES: Next up for the committee, a hearing next week that they say we'll focus on what they describe as Donald Trump's dereliction of duty. Those 187 minutes while the capitol was under siege. And they say they'll show he did not do enough to prevent the violence from getting worse.
And the committee ended their hearing on Tuesday by making note of a potential witness getting a phone call out of the blue from the former President Donald Trump. They say that witness declined the call and instead informed their attorney of it. The attorney then reached out to the committee. The committee says that they've now passed that information along to the Department of Justice in case it is a potential instance of witness intimidation.
Ryan Nobles, CNN, on Capitol Hill.
CHURCH: Harry Litman is a former U.S. attorney who's currently a legal affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and host of the Talking Feds podcast. He joins me now from La Joya in California.
Always great to have you with us.
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thanks, Rosemary. Good to be here.
CHURCH: So at the seventh public hearing of the January 6th committee Tuesday, it was made very clear the powerful influence President Trump had, and indeed has over extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers who marched on the capitol on behalf of the former president and didn't stop rioting until Trump said to go home.
How critical is it for the committee to establish that link between those actions of the rioters on January 6th, and of course, the call to arms from the former president?
LITMAN: Yes, I thought it was quite critical. You know, only a few weeks ago, Rosemary, people were thinking that maybe this was some kind of spontaneous conflagration, or at worst, a kind of home-grown affair by the terrorists. I think we can call them that, the Oath Keepers and the three percenters and the Proud Boys.
It looks very, very different now. It started to look that way with Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony. And now it looks very much as if Trump made a conscious decision that this was the last card he had to play to call out his sort of cavalry as it were to go and to absolutely march on the capitol.
He wanted them to know that. And for, and he knew of course that they were going to do violence when they were there. So he very much plays the role of the kind of, director of proceedings here and the sort of impresario. That matters a lot for the story. It matters a lot for the country and it matters a lot, potentially, for his own criminal liability.
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CHURCH: And as well as this testimony from previous Trump supporters, the other stunning part of the day was when right at the end, in fact, Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee revealed that one unnamed witness had been called by Trump. How significant might that prove to be, do you think?
LITMAN: Well, first, I just want to say there were many stunning parts to the day, and I felt like a roller coaster when it was over. In that one meeting that of six hours with that nearly came to blows between the crazies and the normals as it were, that was mind blowing in and of itself.
How important could it be? Well, look, it is the kind of offense. If they have it cleanly that they could immediately bring, there was a similar offense kind of hinted at last week involving Mark Meadows. There's an overall debate going on, I think now that especially that the committee's documentation is so strong about whether the Department of Justice should try to sort of jump up a few runs and go for the big game as it were. And that would be a way to do it if it's a very clean kind of offense. You know, something like that even more tame was what got President Clinton impeached many years ago. So it certainly could be a crime in and of itself. It would depend a lot on the words, but if nothing else, it was stunning.
And you thought to yourself, what an incorrigible jackass this guy is with everything that's going on. He's reaching out to witnesses and trying to shape their testimony. It's as if he's impervious to the stakes here, which are enormous.
CHURCH: Well, I mean, he has been so far, hasn't he?
LITMAN: Yes, right.
CHURCH: So now, now that we are all seeing the full extent of Trump's involvement in the January 6th insurrection, what is the next step? And what do you think will be the likely ramifications for Trump? Because he ensures that he doesn't leave much of a trail, doesn't he?
LITMAN: Well, he tries to. So those are two very different questions. As to the first, I think a week from Thursday, they have pretty much pre-figured that we're going to have a kind of hour by hour account of what Trump was doing as the flames were burning.
And it appears that he was being jubilant and resisting all efforts to call off the dogs. And an important part of today's evidence was that when he was finally persuaded to do it, it was immediately effective. Meaning, he had the power all during the time, the three hours or so that he was doing nothing.
The eventual ramifications of course will be up to the Department of Justice. People are thinking more and more, you know, the evidence is so strong. It's a very serious and unprecedented move in U.S. history, the indicting of the former president and including by the opposing party.
But man, as things you -- you more and more after every hearing are left with the notion, if not now, when? How could you possibly give a pass on all of this stuff?
So it's a lonely decision for Merrick Garland. He's the one who'll make it. He might make it later rather than sooner. That's a big question in and of itself, but I think they have, as a matter of evidence, they've got the goods on Trump in two or three different crimes and it'll come down to other factors as to whether it's, loosely speaking, in the best interests of the country.
CHURCH: We're all watching to see where this goes.
LITMAN: Yes.
CHURCH: Harry Litman, thank you as always for your analysis and perspective.
LITMAN: Thanks, Rosemary. Good to be here. CHURCH: Well, U.S. Republicans have been increasingly showing their
affinity for Hungary's authoritarian leader Viktor Orban. He's been invited to speak at the crucial Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas next month.
Here is Sunlen Serfaty with the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Respected all over Europe. Probably like me a little bit controversial for --
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Viktor Orban has become an icon on the right.
TRUMP: He really is a good man and he's done a fantastic job for his country.
SERFATY: Attracting the adoration of some of the Republican Party's top right wing voices.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: What Orban represents at one level, that is the MAGA, America first movement here.
SERFATY: The authoritarian nationalist and socially conservative leader won a fourth term in office in April.
VIKTOR ORBAN, HUNGARIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We have scored a victory so big that it can be seen even from the moon, but definitely from Brussels.
SERFATY: He has restricted LGBTQ rights, taken a hard line on immigration, promoted government control of the press and pushed the white nationalist great replacement theory, pushing his country farther right.
[03:30:01]
ORBAN (through translator): Liberal thinking in Europe now became the arch enemy of freedom. Liberals are the enemy of freedom in Europe.
SERFATY: While crusading against western liberal values.
ORBAN (through translator): We should have our own media. We can only show the insanity of the progressive left if there is media helping us.
SERFATY: Often speaking directly to and attempting to influence Republicans in the United States. In May, Republicans hosted another C-PAC conference in Hungary, an unprecedented move. The first time the gathering had been hosted in Europe.
ORBAN (through translator): The first point in the Hungarian formula is to play by our own rules.
SERFATY: And it was there where Orban outlined a 12-point plan for how other leaders can emulate his approach.
ORBAN (through translator): The second point, national conservatism in domestic politics.
SERFATY: His ideology is resonating in some far-right circles. Fox's Tucker Carlson even hosted his show from Budapest for multiple days last August.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Hungary, a small country with a lot of lessons for the rest of us.
SERFATY: Holding up Orban's playbook as a model for the future of the Republican Party.
CARLSON: What a wonderful country. The people who have turned our country into a much less good place are hysterical when you point it out. The last thing they want is any kind of signpost to a better way.
SERFATY: As the country today is again reminded of the threat of growing right-wing extremism with the latest January 6th hearing, Democrats see warning signs for America.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): To praise Orban, that shows you where this Republican Party is headed under MAGA Republican domination.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SERFATY: And Orban will be traveling to Dallas for the C-PAC conference which will be held the first week in August, and also features a who's who of other right-wing voices in the party like former President Trump, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and Sean Hannity, among others.
Sunlen Serfaty CNN, Washington.
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Still to come, Shanghai rolls out more mandatory COVID testing as cases continue to rise, but as some neighborhoods get locked down, many fear mass restrictions may return. We're live in Beijing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: An update now from Sri Lanka as we look at these live pictures, an aide to the prime minister says he is waiting for a formal announcement by the parliament speaker that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has resigned so that the prime minister can now be sworn in as acting president.
[03:35:06]
The aide says that follows with Sri Lanka's Constitution until a new president is elected. And this comes after the prime minister ordered a state of emergency for the western province, including the capital after police clashed with protestors outside the prime minister's office. Sri Lanka's president meanwhile has fled to the Maldives and there is
no word yet on his formal resignation. So we're just, we need confirmation on that. We'll continue to follow it.
Well, Ukraine is claiming a victory in the south even as Russian forces continue hammering the country's south and east. On Tuesday, more strikes pounded Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv. To the south, shelling was also reported in the city of Mykolaiv. And in the east Ukraine says Russian forces are striking towns and villages across the Donetsk region as they look to capture the entire Donbas.
Now it comes as the death toll continues to rise from Saturday's brutal rocket attack on a town near the front lines in Donetsk. Ukraine says more than 40 people were killed and another nine were rescued from the rubble.
But Ukraine is striking back. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military announced that it had destroyed a Russian ammunition depot in an occupied part of the Kherson region. Russian backed officials in the area are accusing Ukraine of using long-range artillery supplied by the United States to carry out that attack.
Ukraine is not directly confirming those reports, but in his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy touted the success of modern artillery from the west.
And for more, we want to bring in CNN's Scott McLean. He joins us live from Kyiv. Good to see you again, Scott. So what is the situation in Enerhodar with the Russian occupied nuclear plant, and of course the latest on the fighting on the ground across the region.
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Rosemary. Yes, the first indication that we got yesterday that something was awry was from the mayor of Enerhodar who's actually not in the city. He is in Zaporizhzhia because of course, Enerhodar is under Russian occupation.
So he said that people woke up to some explosions there. There were some shooting in the city. Later Russian state media said that it was actually Ukrainian drone strikes on a building very near to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which is in Enerhodar. The mayor quickly said, look, that's not the case or that at least that the Russia -- or the Ukrainians were not responsible for it, saying essentially, that when the Ukrainians go to take back the city, you'll know it. Don't worry.
This is a strange scenario, Rosemary, because of course it's not clear what caused these explosions, but of course, given the nuclear power plant there everyone's ears perk up when they hear of any fighting in that city.
CHURCH: And Scott, what more are you learning about the appeal today in court for Vadim Shishimarin, the 21-year-old Russian soldier who was the first to be convicted of a war crime.
MCLEAN: Yes. So this is an appeals hearing for that, that case. He was convicted. The first conviction in May 23rd and he was sentenced to life in prison. Two of the other soldiers that he was with at the time were actually exchanged.
You'll remember that he was with a Russian convoy that had been struck by the Ukrainians in an effort to get away from the shelling. He and four other soldiers stole a car. They went into a nearby village and they ended up killing a 62-year-old man on his phone while riding his bicycle.
Now he was convicted as I mentioned, and he admits that he did kill this man, but he says that it was under pressure from one of his superiors to actually pull the trigger. And so that is essentially what his lawyer is going to be arguing today in court that the punishment doesn't quite fit the crime.
CHURCH: All right, Scott McLean joining us live from Kyiv, many thanks.
Well, a search for answers in Japan following the assassination of the country's longest serving prime minister. Shinzo Abe was fatally shot last week during a campaign rally. His funeral was held in Tokyo on Tuesday, but even as the country mourns, questions about how and why the former leader was killed continue to swirl.
CNN's Matthew Chance has our report.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as the commemorations for Shinzo Abe begin to wind down, although there were still flowers being laid here in Nara, in Western Japan where he was assassinated, police here in the city are also stepping up their activities, scouring the city for any details, any clues they may have missed.
The suspected killer 41-year-old Tatsuya Yamagami was of course tackled in the moments after the shooting and he is still in police custody.
[03:40:05]
He's confessed to killing Abe because of what he said was a grudge over a certain religious group that he believed Abe and his family were linked with. The police have not named that group, but the Unification church, which is a South Korean organization to which the suspected killer's mother is alleged to belong, although we haven't spoken to her to confirm that, has confirmed that Abe has spoken at two online events in the past year that it hosted local media.
It's also reporting that Abe's grandfather had a role in expanding the group in Japan decades ago, something the church itself has dismissed. Police say the suspect insists he planned and carried out the killing alone. But investigations clearly into how and why Japan's most prominent political figure clearly not yet at an end.
Matthew Chance, CNN in Nara, Western Japan.
CHURCH: The World Health organization warns the COVID pandemic is nowhere near over. The comment came from the group's director general on Tuesday when a committee agreed that COVID 19 still meets the requirements of a worldwide health emergency. Given its continued growth rate, among other factors, cases continue to rise in China where the city of Shanghai is in the midst of mandatory mass testing because of small persistent outbreaks.
And CNN's Selina Wang joins me now live from Beijing. Good to see you, Selina. So what is the situation in Shanghai right now? And how worried are residents there that they might see a return of mass restrictions in the city?
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Great to be back with you, Rosemary. Yes, Shanghai residents right now they are getting this very ominous feeling of dejavu. It has only been a matter of weeks since officials declared victory over COVID. And now there are growing fears that Shanghai may be headed back into lockdown.
Cases last week were just in the single digits, they have now jumped to more than 50 a day. These numbers are still low, but we are talking about zero COVID China here. So officials count this as a major escalation.
What's also alarming authorities is that Shanghai and several other cities across China have also detected this more contagious, more transmissible COVID subvariant. So in reaction to this, we are seeing Shanghai go back into mass testing. There are several neighborhood communities according to local media that have urging residents to stockpile on food, on medical supplies.
So all of this bringing back very painful memories for Shanghai residents. They had to endure that brutal two-month lockdown in which getting enough food and daily essentials became a daily struggle. And there were countless heartbreaking stories of people who were unable to get urgent, critical medical care.
Now officials, they are denying any rumors of a citywide lockdown, but a lot of Shanghai residents they have lost trust in their local authorities. Because remember back in March, the officials were similarly denying rumors of a lockdown. And then when they finally announced a lockdown, they promised that it was only going to last for a few days. Instead, it lasted for two months. And for some people it lasted even longer than that.
But it is not just Shanghai where COVID, zero COVID is being tested for officials. There are new flareups in many parts of the country. Many parts are now in partial or full lockdown. You've got Lanzhou and Guangzhou province, and also several cities as well in Hainan province that are under full lockdown, Rosemary.
CHURCH: All right. Thanks for staying on top of that. Selina Wang joining us live from Beijing.
Well, there is no escape from the heat. It's going to be another scorching hot weekend for the U.K. as a heat wave pummels Western Europe. How high could temperatures go? We'll take a look at that on the other side of the break. Stay with us.
[03:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHURCH: Well, much of western Europe is bracing for another round of dangerous heat after the second warmest June on record. Extreme heat alerts the highest level possible are in effect in Eastern Spain and Portugal. And there are fears the high temperatures could worsen wildfires now burning in some areas.
Already sweltering England and Wales could get even hotter this weekend. Officials are issuing heat health alerts for vulnerable communities. They worry the high temperatures could melt roads and cause rail and air travel delays.
So let's turn to our meteorologist now, Gene Norman who joins us. Gene, of course that part of the world is not equipped to deal with scorching temperatures like this. So just how bad could it get?
GENE NORMAN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I'll tell you, Rosemary, the hottest spikes, at least over the next couple of days are going to be central Spain. How about this? Forty-five for highs today and tomorrow in Sevilla. Meanwhile, Madrid will stay above 40 degrees. Portugal will catch a bit of a break after today. However, Paris going to climb to 36 for today.
High temperatures on Tuesday. Once again, we're scorching hot in sections of Portugal and Spain, 44 -- 44 in Merida. Even up until London got to 31 degrees today. Now, for Portland and -- sorry, for Portugal and for Spain, the heat alerts will remain in effect pretty much through the end of the week.
However, we are going to see a bit of a change. We are watching high pressure. That's going to keep most of western Europe hot. There is a bit of a cool front that will move across the U.K. later on today. So we'll get a bit of a brief break, but then notice how that heat builds right back up as we head into the weekend.
And because of that, there is a heat alert, an amber alert in effect for the southern part of Great Britain, that's where temperatures could approach 40 degrees. That increases that heat illness risk. And of course, the old time high temperature record could be in jeopardy as well. Rain, far away from anybody staying off to the east. So Rosemary, that heat is nothing to play with. It's certainly dangerous. And another one of the fingerprints of climate change.
CHURCH: Yes. We just keep talking about that, don't we? I really appreciate it. Gene Norman, bringing us up to date on the situation there.
Well, a new study puts actual dollar figures on the economic harm caused by the country's most responsible for climate change. Researchers at Dartmouth College say the world's top five emitters of greenhouse gases the U.S. China, Russia, India, and Brazil cause losses of $6 trillion from the global economy between 1990 and 2014. That's about 11 percent of global GDP. And the U.S. and China alone cause more than half of those losses. Well, one of these studies authors says quantifying how much damage a
particular country has caused could potentially lead to legal action against the world's wealthiest nations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUSTIN MANKIN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE: One country emitting or forgoing it to emissions has an economic impact. We can process trace and identify and quantify that impact and put it in dollar terms. And you're absolutely right. That is central to informing climate litigation, questions of climate liability.
And the ambitions of a lot of low income countries in the global south who are rightfully seeking restitution for the damages they've suffered from the benefits of fossil fuel consumption in the industrialized world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHURCH: And I spoke earlier with Christopher Callahan, the studies' lead author, and I asked him how he was able to put a dollar amount on the global economic harm from climate change. Take a listen.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTOPHER CALLAHAN, PH.D. CANDIDATE, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE: We proceeded in basically three steps. We know how much countries like the United States and China have emitted in terms of greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere. And we were able to use basically simple simulations of the Earth. So little computer models that simulate the planet that live in our computers that show us that when that amount of greenhouse gases is emitted, the global climate changes by a certain amount.
The global average temperature rises over the course of the last 25 years. We can then show that that global warming produces local warming in individual countries such as Indonesia or Brazil or Venezuela.
And then we can use other additional work that shows that when temperatures rise locally in certain countries, the economic output of those countries is change -- it just changed because it becomes more difficult to grow crops, or it becomes more difficult to work outside or in un-airconditioned spaces.
And so we take all these different puzzle pieces and put them together to produce this single number that communicates the impact of the warming produced by the emissions from an individual country.
CHURCH: That is fascinating how you come up with that. So do you have any expectation that the United States, China, Russia, Brazil, and India will actually admit responsibility first for causing this climate crisis and then ultimately pay up. And if they don't, what legal action could potentially be taken against them? Could this data provide a basis for that?
CALLAHAN: You know, as scientists, we are sort of confronted with the reality that we can put numbers into the world, but it's ultimately up to other people to determine what to do with those numbers. And so, at the end of the day, conversations about legal liability for climate change have been a major sticking point in international climate negotiations.
We can hope that providing these numbers will prevent countries from claiming some sort of plausible deniability or lack of knowledge about the impact that their emissions have caused. And we think that that is a major contribution of our study, but at the end of the day, it's a political decision by major emitters to choose, to admit that responsibility.
And that's something that developing nations have been calling for, including things like contributions to the green climate fund to help other countries develop their economies in a green and low emitting way. And we can hope that this will produce further action on things like contributions to that fund.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: That was Christopher Callahan, lead author of this study on the global economic harm from climate change.
Unlocking the secrets of the universe. The most powerful space telescope ever built is unveiling stunning new images. What they could tell us about how the cosmos came to be. That's next.
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CHURCH: We are getting a spectacular new look at stars thousands of lightyears away. Thanks to the most powerful space telescope ever built. The images from the James Webb Space Telescope could bring clues to big questions like how the universe evolved and if there's extra-terrestrial life out there.
Here's CNN's Rachel Crane.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION & SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A portal to our universe 13 billion years ago, colliding galaxies giving birth to new star formation, stellar and planetary nebula in all their glory.
[03:55:05]
And the first glimpse inside the cloudy atmosphere of an exoplanet, an extraordinary milestone for the James Webb Space Telescope as NASA finally revealed the breathtaking first set of images, including the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the universe to date.
ERIC SMITH, PROGRAM SCIENTIST, JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE PROGRAM: We're making discoveries and we really haven't even started trying yet. So, the promise of this telescope is amazing.
CRANE: More than two decades in the making and a result of a $10 billion investment, Webb is the largest and most advanced telescope ever to orbit the sun and sends back its groundbreaking data from one million miles away.
BILL NELSON, ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: Every image is a new discovery and each will give humanity a view of the universe that we've never seen before.
CRANE: But it's more than just a telescope. It's a time machine.
THOMAS ZURBUCHEN, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, NASA SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE: The way I think about it is a portal to the ancient times of the universe. The telescope is way more than just a way to look at nature. It's a way to unlock nature in new ways.
UNKNOWN: And lift off.
CRANE: Launched on Christmas Day of 2021, James Webb is 100 times more powerful than its predecessor Hubble, and makes the mysteries of the universe observable using new technologies never before launched into space. Webb transforms the invisible infrared light of the cosmos into something the human eye can see, study, and investigate.
ZURBUCHEN: It's really our Apollo moment in science. It's -- we bet everything on it and we got there.
CRANE: Scientists see a once in generation chance to chase the big questions about our existence. How did we get here? And are we alone? And while we don't yet have the answers as it's just the beginning, scientists are already blown away by the results.
UNKNOWN: This is going to be revolutionary. These are incredible capabilities that we've never had before.
CRANE: Rachel Crane, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHURCH: Well, it turns out people aren't the only ones fed up with inflation. An aquarium in Japan has had to use mackerel to feed its penguins because their favorite fish called aji is too expensive.
But as you can see by their reactions, the penguins are not very happy with the change in meals. Same goes for the otters who just turned up their noses at the cheaper mackerel. So the workers, well, they had to get creative. They mix the mackerel with a little aji and the animals seem pretty OK with that.
Well, the aquarium says all of the animals are family and they do their best to keep them healthy and happy and give them food they like. Well done.
Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me. I'm Rosemary Church. CNN Newsroom continues next with Max Foster. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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