Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Wildfires Spread Across Southwest Europe As Britain Prepares For Extreme Heat; Ukraine's Zelenskyy Fires Top Security Chief And Prosecutor; At Least 3 Victims Killed In Central Indiana Mall Shooting; Uvalde Shooting Report Describes Multiple Failures And A Lackadaisical Approach By Law Enforcement; Special Texas House Investigative Committee Releases Uvalde School Shooting Report; Sri Lanka's Acting President Declares Nationwide Public Emergency; Five Candidates Left in Race to Replace Boris Johnson; China Faces Major Rise in COVID Cases and Extreme Heat; Los Angeles County Mulls Reinstating Mask Mandate; Agencies Sound Alarm on Decreasing Childhood Vaccinations; Australian Golfer Cameron Smith Wins First Career Major. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired July 18, 2022 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:00:26]
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone and welcome. I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company. Coming up here on CNN Newsroom, raging wildfires, and record high temperatures are plaguing parts of Europe. We'll discuss where things stand in our planet's climate crisis.
Ukraine's President accusing some and his own government of collaborating with the Russians and firing two top officials.
And Sri Lankan's acting president declares a nationwide public emergency. We're live in Colombo with the latest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from CNN Center. This is CNN Newsroom with Michael Holmes.
HOLMES: And we begin with a dangerous heatwave, fueling wildfires and making life miserable for people in Western Europe. In the UK, people flocked to the beach in Bournemouth, England on Sunday, bracing for possible record high temperatures in the next two days.
Things look so bad, British officials held a crisis meeting a so called Cobra session to address the heat. Weather authorities have issued their first ever read extreme heat warning for parts of the UK, the mercury looks set to hit 40 degrees Celsius, that's around 104 degrees Fahrenheit by Tuesday.
And things aren't any better across the channel in western France officials they're issued their highest temperature alert for 15 departments on Sunday and the heat making it even harder to battle several wildfires. Extreme temperatures also striking parts of Spain journalist al Goodman with the latest from Madrid.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
AL GOODMAN, JOURNALIST (on camera): Wildfires continue to burn across Spain and one of the most concerning near the southern city of Malaga on the Mediterranean Sea that fire started on Friday. That's an area very popular with Northern Europeans who come to Spain's Costa del Sol for tourism. Some of them have retirement homes there. People have been posting on social media showing their homes.
One man wrote, I hope mine is spared. But there have been several 1,000 people evacuated, including a couple from Britain, who spoke from a shelter to Reuters. The woman saying we could only grab a few essentials before we had to get out of our home. The man saying her husband that they had to leave a lot of stuff behind. That's a sentiment you've heard as well from Western Spain where there were more fires, people evacuated from villages and certainly from France south of Bordeaux, where there are two major fires that have scorched thousands of acres and caused thousands of evacuations.
But there is some promising news. Spain's national weather agency says the current heatwave which started a week ago Sunday will end on Monday because cooler breezes from the Atlantic Ocean are starting to blow in displacing some of this very hot air from Africa.
However up north in France, officials there say that the peak day for this current heatwave will be on Monday with temperatures around 40 degrees Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. And further north.
In the United Kingdom, the UK Met Office issued a three-day Red Alert for heat, worrying that there could be record heat of 40 degrees Celsius coming up in the next few days.
Scientists who study climate change says these extreme heat waves and these prolonged droughts affecting farmers in Spain and in Italy trying to save their grain crops and other crops. All of these that the scientists say are clear signs of climate change. Al, Goodman, CNN, Madrid.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HOLMES: And meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins me now from the CNN Weather Center. What are you seeing out there, Pedram?
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, Michael, this is another extensive heat wave here that we're watching really develop across the northern and western portion of Europe over the next several days where the heat begins to build the temperatures are where we've seen already into the middle 40s across the southern portion in the central areas of Spain now expanding a little farther towards the north.
Notice even into areas of France in the last couple of days coming in with high temperatures as warm as 41 where 26 is the climatological norm here for the middle portion of July which by the way climatologically speaking middle to latter portion of July around areas of Europe is the hottest time of year. So this is when you expect heat waves but even still upper 20s maybe 30 degrees is what you expect, certainly not touching 40 degrees, but notice areas of western France. They have the high alerts for excessive heat and heat is among the top weather killers anywhere in the world. I know tornadoes get a lot of attention. Tropical systems get a lot of attention. Heck, even when it comes to flooding, it gets quite a bit of attention when it comes to the severity of those events because visually there pretty stunning, pretty spectacular and of course they're deadly.
[01:05:02]
But heat is actually the number one weather killer. And sometimes you combine a couple of those elements, tropical systems or tornadoes, heat still, on average takes more lives and you have these temperatures into the upper 30s.
About 40 degrees in major cities with millions of people certainly the impacts are going to be significant. We know major cities, lack of vegetation helps trap some of the moisture there and that helps trap the moisture. But when it comes to buildings themselves, certainly the radiation off the buildings can actually exacerbate the situation and be released as additional heat.
So within those major cities, temps could be one to three degrees warmer than just a few kilometers away from those city centers. Notice the UK, we're talking about the English Channel having a temperature of 32 degrees when 20 is typically the warmest they see this time of year.
Now a little areas to the north there, including portions where the red alerts are in place. In those regions 50 percent chance we can see a 40 degree observation, that includes in and around areas of London within the next 24 or so hours. 80 percent chance records will fall across this region and the excessive heat in place again for at least 48 more hours in this northern reach. And then notice what happens Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, considerably cooler air for those northern areas that are not accustomed to this kind of heat. But the southern areas still dealing with excessive temperatures going in towards the latter portion of this week, Michael. So, pretty incredible heatwave taking shape.
HOLMES: Absolutely. Pedram thanks so much. Pedram Javaheri there.
JAVAHERIL: Thank you.
HOLMES: Now the Petersburg Climate Dialogue kicks off in Berlin on Monday. It's an annual informal meeting of ministers and representatives from about three dozen countries. The focus is the implementation of the Paris Climate Accord, as well as preparation for the next Climate Change Conference. This year it's co-hosted by Germany and Egypt, the host country for COP27. German Chancellor Olaf Schulz and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi are expected to speak during the Gathering.
And here is another stark example of just how urgent the climate crisis has become, a hypothetical weather forecast meteorologist we're expecting to see in the year 2050 will actually come true this week in the UK.
Two years ago, British forecasters didn't experiment with what they called plausible projections of temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius or more for the UK. But what they thought would happen 30 years from now is the actual forecast for today and Tuesday. Forecasters warn this type of heat, which is breaking records right now will be pretty typical in the not too distant future.
Joining me now is Michael Mann. He is the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State and the author of "The New Climate War."
It's good to have you back on Michael, that when we do it's never really good news is what we're seeing now in Europe and elsewhere fires record temperatures, is it a case of reaping what we have sown and decades earlier predicted? And what could be around the corner if things continue this way?
MICHAEL MANN, DIRECTOR, EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER, PENN STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes, thanks. It is good to talk with you as it always is. But unfortunately, usually we don't have good news to discuss when we do speak.
You know, what we're seeing here indeed, is an example of reaping what we've sown. We have continued to warm the planet for decades through carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning. And that has now warmed the planet up to the point where the impacts of climate change aren't subtle anymore. We're seeing them play out in real time in the form of these unprecedented extreme weather disasters.
And this summer, you know, it's just the latest in a sequence of summers, where we have seen record heat waves and wildfires and floods, all a reminder that, again, the impacts of climate change aren't so anymore. We're now seeing the devastating consequences of human caused warming.
HOLMES: It's important, I think, to remember that these events that we're seeing these extreme events are within the one and a half degree increase in temperatures that we were warned about. We often hear at the tipping point where things can't be clawed back or mitigated or reverse. What happens when the increases 2-2.5 degrees?
MANN: Yes, and so, you know, the warming of the planet has preceded pretty much as climate scientists, like myself predicted decades ago, predicted, you know, the warming that would occur if we continued to sort of remain on a business as usual trajectory of fossil fuel burning.
And so the models have actually been quite accurate in predicting the warming that has occurred. Where the models have tended to underestimate climate change is in the impacts of that warming for example on extreme weather events and we increasingly understand that there are some subtle features in how the warming of the planet and the pattern of that warming, the fact that the Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, that changes temperature differences between the equator and the polar regions.
[01:10:22]
And those temperature differences are what govern the jet stream, this strong band of winds that moves weather systems along. And so what we're seeing is that the warming is impacted the jet stream in a way that is created these very persistent extreme weather events. And it really points to something that wasn't well captured in our models.
An example of how, you know, uncertainty isn't our friend. In many respects, we're seeing that the consequences are greater than what our models predicted. But what the models do tell us is that if we bring our carbon emissions back down to zero, if we reduce our carbon emissions to zero, the planet will stop warming up and when the planet stops warming up, then these other impacts tend to stabilize.
And so, you know, while there are uncertainties in the science, and some of those uncertainties have led us to underestimate the consequences of the warming, the science does tell us that to a great extent, our destiny is still in our hands, if we can move away from fossil fuel burning, decarbonize our economy and do so on a fairly rapid schedule, we can prevent the worst consequences. We can prevent this from getting even worse.
HOLMES: Yes. And yes, people like you, I think we last talked around the COP meeting. People like you have said this for decades, really. And yet, we're not getting to the goals that we need to have. I mean, the talk versus action when it comes to climate goals, commitments of governments, are those targets enough in size? And importantly, timeframe, especially given the strength of the fossil fuel lobby and its influences? I mean, what are we facing, even if pledges are kept at current levels?
MANN: Yes, I mean, and so, you know, certainly the fossil fuel industry, and those promoting their agenda have been very effective in quashing efforts to, you know, decarbonize our economy as rapidly as we need to do.
That having been said, even in the face of that opposition, and that resistance, we have seen quite a bit of, you know, progress in recent years in large part because, for example, the United States has now returned to a position of leadership after having spent four years with a president -- in Donald Trump, who really did everything he could to block global efforts to act on climate. The United States is back now in a leadership position.
And I believe that that has brought other countries to the table. And we've seen commitments, most recently in Glasgow, if you tally up the consequence of all of the commitments that were made by the countries of the world at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow last year, we now see commitments that could keep warming below two degrees Celsius, three and a half Fahrenheit or so.
We are now on a trajectory no longer where we're looking at four degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century, but maybe something more like two degrees Celsius warming, that's still too much. We need to keep warming even lower below one and a half degrees Celsius to prevent the worst consequences.
And by the way, promises are one thing. It's easy to make commitments and something else to keep them. And so we've seen some progress, we've seen carbon emissions stop increasing. And that's good news. But the bad news is that's not enough. We can't just flatten those emissions. We've got to bring them down to zero and then do so rapidly. So we've got to do a whole lot more work.
And here, the United States, these midterm elections coming up this fall are really going to determine whether we are able to meet our commitments, which of course is critical to convincing other countries around the world to meet theirs as well.
HOLMES: Well, of course, there's one Democratic senator and Joe Manchin, who's stopping Joe Biden's climate initiatives from moving ahead. So yes, there might be good, good agendas out there, but they're not getting done.
And I think the lesson is, this is happening at under one and a half. So, if people are scared about what's going on now, what's going to happen in the future? I've got to leave it there. Michael Mann, as always. Appreciate you coming on.
MANN: Thank you. I was great to talk with you.
HOLMES: Now to Ukraine and a major shake-up at the top of the government. On Sunday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired his country's prosecutor general and the head of Ukraine's Security Service.
[01:10:03]
Mr. Zelenskyy said he lost faith in their leadership abilities after many of their subordinates were accused of treason and collaborating with Russia. He did not disclose whether the fire officials themselves are under investigation.
Now the shake-up came as more Russian missiles hammered Eastern Ukraine over the weekend. The latest salvo is in a brutal fight for the country's Donbas region, and yet the frontlines there show little signs of movement. But to the south Ukrainian troops are going on the offensive in a push to recapture Russian Hill territory. CNN Scott McLean reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO T APE)
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Well, Ukraine says that it is slowly but surely taking back territory in the southern part of the country. The military won't say exactly where they've made gains, but there is some evidence suggesting that they've made modest advances around the border region between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.
Ukrainian forces now claimed that Russian troops are hiding themselves amongst the civilian population in Kherson to avoid being hit by Ukrainian strikes. Of course the Ukrainians are keen to utilize their newfound artillery firepower supplied by the West by striking at Russian supply lines deep into Russian held territory.
Ukrainians say that they have seen evidence suggesting that a large volume of Russian military equipment has moved through the city of Mariupol headed west. Those analysts suggest that equipment may be headed toward Kherson to help the Russians defend a city that they've held since the early days of war.
In the eastern part of the country, there is little evidence to suggest that the front lines have moved much at all in recent days. But the Russians continue to bomb and shell that towns, villages and cities on the other side of the front line the most recent Pokrovsk, where local officials say at least one person was killed, and more than 12 were injured. Scott McLean, CNN, Kyiv.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HOLMES: Now as Scott mentioned there, Russian forces have been focusing much of their firepower on eastern Ukraine. But even far from the front lines safety is never a guarantee, as CNN's Ivan Watson reports.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russia is raining rockets and missiles down on Ukrainian cities. Campaign of long distance violence carried out daily. In just the last week, the Russian military hurled deadly weapons at Dnipro, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia and many cities and towns in between.
The July 14th strike on the central city of Vinnytsia took place mid- morning on a Thursday. The attack killed at least 24 people, including children, wounded many more. But the Russian military is also firing near daily salvos at places like the frontline city of Mykolaiv.
(on camera): Seems like this are becoming commonplace across Ukraine and the reality is anytime anyplace a deadly Russian missile could come crashing into your building.
(voice-over): The governor here accuses the Russian military of firing repurposed S300 surface to air missiles at his city.
VITALI KIM, MYKOLAIV REGION, URKAINE GOVERNOR: Terrorism. And let's see because it is like a strategy of Russian to scare civilian people to make panic.
WATSON: In recent days, missiles hit a hotel, a hospital, two universities and this elementary school. The challenge the deputy principal here she says that this part of the school was actually built more than a century ago. Look what's left of it.
The missile war is different from the furious artillery duels being fought along front lines because the missile strikes hit far from zones of active combat in communities like the southern port city of Odesa that can otherwise sometimes feel relatively safe.
There was no obvious sign of a Ukrainian military presence at the National University of Shipbuilding in Mykolaiv targeted by at least four missiles on Friday. If they want to scare us with terrorism, it won't work, this resident says. Some people will leave for their safety he adds, but those who are ready to sacrifice everything for the defense of our country will stay.
Ukraine is carrying out its own devastating long distance strikes with the help of long range weapon systems provided by the U.S. and other Western allies. Repeatedly pounding what Kyiv claims was a Russian ammunition depot in the Russian occupied town of Nova Kakhovka this month, and attack that Moscow claimed killed at least six and wounded many more.
[01:20:00]
Those lucky to survive left to pick up the pieces, victims of a vicious war with no end in sight. Ivan Watson, CNN, Mykolaiv, Ukraine.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HOLMES: Mine sweeping crews are combing the wreckage of a cargo plane crash in Greece. The Serbian defense ministry says the plane was carrying a payload of munitions including mortar shells. It was operated by a Ukrainian airline and it was traveling from Serbia to Bangladesh with a stop planned in Jordan.
Witnesses said they saw it burning in the sky before it crashed. Teams hoped to collect and neutralize any explosives that might still be part of the debris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. GEN. MARIOS APOSTOLIDIS, NORTHERN GREECE FIRE BRIGADE (through translator): The police unit for radioactive material came and made some measurements which didn't show something serious. They showed heat, smoke and a white substance that we don't know exactly what it is. We are waiting for the specialists to tell us what the substance is. And if it is safe to approach the point of the accident.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: All eight people on board that plane were killed. Quick break here on the program. When we come back, a new report on the Uvalde, Texas school shooting is leveling harsh criticism that the official response. We'll have details. And later, parts of Asia overcome by new ways of COVID infections and sweltering heat. The latest on how they're trying to slow the spread and keep cool. That's when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Three people were killed to others injured during a shooting at a shopping mall in the U.S. state of Indiana. The local police chief revealing some details about the suspected gunman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHIEF JAMES ISON, GREENWOOD POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have what appears to be one shooter looks to be an adult male. We have not identified him yet. We do not have a motive yet. It appears that he had a rifle with several magazines of ammunition, entered the food court and began shooting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: The suspected gunman was killed by a person police described as a quote Good Samaritan with a handgun, who was inside the mall. Police still investigating what led up to the shooting.
And overall lackadaisical approach, that's how Texas investigators are describing the official response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left two teachers and 19 children dead back on May 24.
The 77-page preliminary report compiled by a Texas State House Investigative Committee was released on Sunday, roughly 40 people provided testimony including members of the Texas public safety department, Uvalde school and district police chief and others.
Robb elementary school's principal, a teacher and custodial staff also spoke behind closed doors. CNN's Rosa Flores is in Uvalde with more details from the report.
[01:25:0004]
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): According to this report, there were just so many systemic and catastrophic failures on multiple levels by law enforcement.
Let me take you through this report a portion of it. According to this report, the school police Chief P. Arredondo wrote the active shooter policy for this school. He wrote his name as the incident commander, but then he didn't take the role on that ill-fated Day on May 24.
According to this report, Arredondo even chose the administration office to be the command post. But again, according to this report, he didn't take that role.
Now this report goes on to say that hundreds of police officers responded. Hundreds of police officers who were also trained in active shooter situations, and they didn't respond adequately. According to this report, those officers should have question the fact that there was no incident commander, the fact that Arredondo was not taking that incident command post or they should have asked questions that training according to this report should have kicked in.
I want to read from the report it says quote, at Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.
This report goes on to say that those officers in the hallway and Arredondo waited, what were they waiting for? They were waiting for keys, they were waiting for other gear and equipment.
One of the things that's very specific in this report is that according to the U.S. Marshals at 12:20, a shield, a rifle, protective shield was delivered to the school. Now we know that the shooter was not shot and killed until 12:50. Important point there.
Now, according to this report, the officers on scene treated as a barricaded subject. And this report says that these officers should have known better once that shooter started firing his weapon again, but instead they didn't.
And yet again, this report states that those officers, their training should have kicked in at that point in time. They should have asked more questions. They should -- one of them could have this report says taken that role of incident commander because of the training that they had.
I want to continue reading from the report because this says quote, in particular, the locking mechanism to room 111 was widely known to be faulty, yet it was not repaired. Robb Elementary had a culture of non- compliance with safety policies requiring doors to be kept locked, which turned out to be fatal. It goes on to say, because of these failures of facility maintenance, and advanced preparation, the attacker fired most of his shots and likely murdered most of his innocent victims before any responder set foot in the building of the approximately 142 rounds the attacker fired inside the building. It is almost certain that he rapidly fired over 100 of those rounds before any officer entered.
And now we know that 19 students and two teachers died on that ill- fated day. I should add that we've reached out to Arredondo's attorney and we have not heard back. Back to you.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
HOLMES: Rosa Flores reporting there. Now, investigative committee members answered questions at a news conference in Uvalde on Sunday. State Representative Dustin Burrows said the report is a first step towards accountability for officials.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DUSTIN BURROWS, TEXAS STATE HOUSE: Each different officer who is connected to an agency's going to have to their own internal review. Everybody's going to have to figure out as I said, who knew what and when. And if somebody failed to exercise their training, if somebody knew there were victims in there being killed or dying and did not do more, I believe those agencies will have to find accountability for those officers.
But that is not what we are tasked with in this report to come with. And I understand that, but the limit what we have done is put the facts forward so others can take a look at that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: Family members got to read the report before it was released to the public. Another committee member pointed out that knowing more about what happened does not heal the heartbreak.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVA GUZMAN, FMR. TEXAS SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: They were supposed to work. They were supposed to protect the innocence who now lie in their graves. Today we stand before a community that's still gripped in grief.
[01:30:36]
With this report, families who were crushed by sorrow and pain will now have desperately needed and deserve answers.
But no report can heal the broken hearts. Only God can do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: And here is a stark reminder of the many young lives lost to gun violence in the U.S. each year. A procession of empty school buses meant to represent the thousands of U.S. students killed by firearms was mobilized towards the Houston home of Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday.
Organized by the anti-gun violence group NRA Children's Museum. It was part of a protest against politicians who have received contributions from gun rights interest groups like the National Rifle Association.
Inside some of the buses were photographs, videos and personal effects of children who have been killed in recent school shootings. The empty seats symbolizing the more than 4,300 children and teens who died by firearms in 2020. One year, that's the most recent year of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Among the organizers were two parents who lost their son in a school shooting in 2018.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANUEL OLIVER, SON KILLED IN 2018 PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTING: We lost our beautiful son during the Parkland shooting almost five years ago. And we're outside of Houston, Texas on our way to Ted Cruz's house.
We are bringing our latest campaign or latest project. It's called the NRA Children's Museum. It's about the money that they're taking versus the amount of lives that that money exemplifies (ph) in our case. So representing that corrupting, represented that way of doing business with the NRA instead of prioritizing the life of our kids is something that we need to call out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now once the convoy arrives at Senator Cruz's home, Manuel and Patricia Oliver attempted to deliver a letter that had been written by their son Joaquin before his death imploring legislatures to require more thorough background checks for gun buyers. Joaquin was 12 years old when he wrote it five years before he was shot dead at the Parkland Florida school shooting.
Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children 19 and younger in the U.S.
Still to come here on the program, Sri Lanka's acting president has declared a state of emergency amid the ongoing political turmoil in the country.
A live report from Will Ripley in the capital, Colombo, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:34:58]
HOLMES: Sri Lanka's acting president has declared a nationwide public emergency. Ranil Wickremasinghe made that proclamation in the interest of public security to protests over the country's deepening economic crisis. This comes as the country's parliament is set to hold nominations for a new president on Tuesday
With the very latest from Sri Lanka, Will Ripley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm in Colombo at one of the few gas stations that's actually pumping petrol right now. We had to drive around past at least two or three before we found this one and we could spot precisely that it was open because the line was stretching not even around the block but like several blocks down.
In Sri Lanka these days, they petrol is more precious than gold which explains the heavily-armed guards.
I've never seen anything quite like this. We've been talking to people waiting in these line. Some of them waiting as long as six days like 19 year old Anuda Gunasinghe (ph). He just graduated from high school.
How long have you been waiting here.
ANUDA GUNASINGHE, SRI LANKAN: Since Monday, like six days.
RIPLEY: Six days.
GUNASINGHE: Yes.
RIPLEY: So how do you live? What do you do?
GUNASINGHE: Sleep in the car. My dad's here so we basically switch like two days each in the queue.
RIPLEY: Like pretty much everyone else here, he's been doing this for months. GUNASINGHE: People shouldn't have to do this, you know? Just suffer in
a queue for so long and then just get fuel for their basic necessities.
RIPLEY: Do you have any trust left in politicians? In your government?
GUNASINGHE: None. None. None at all.
They stole money by fooling us and then we are the ones who have to suffer while they lead luxury lives.
RIPLEY: All right.
GUNASINGHE: Give me a second.
RIPLEY: Yes. Sure.
The fuel ran out three cars before he made it to the pump. He has to wait two more days.
The price is so expensive. It has skyrocketed because this fuel is in such short supply so people are spending, in a lot of cases almost their entire income just to fuel the vehicle that they use to get around, to make a living. It's hard to imagine that people had been living like this for so long here, you can understand when you stand in the midst of all of this mayhem, the anger. The anger on the streets here from people who just want to be able to live a normal life. They don't want to have to spend days waiting in line for something basic, like fuel, like food, like medicine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
RIPLEY: It is really -- you know, it's one thing to read about these queues and it's one thing to see pictures of them. But to actually stand there in the sweltering heat and humidity with people who have been there for more than a week to get gas in their car, 14 -- you know, a small gas tank in a car, you wait over a week.
It's really -- it's really extraordinary, Michael. And it does underscore I think why people are so fed up with the government's decisions that got Sri Lanka in this place because it's not just gas queues, you know, you might have one family member in the gas queues, the other family member is in the food queue trying to get, you know -- and then if God forbid somebody is sick, you know you could literally be in a situation where you have to push your sick relative to the hospital and then wait for days to get medicine.
I'm not exaggerating here. We met people that were doing that. So there's a huge protest that's scheduled for tomorrow here in Colombo. We don't know the exact time and place because they keep it secret but it's supposed to be big. It's the day before parliament is set to elect a new president. If it's the acting president Wickremasinghe, you know, he was a close friend with the Rajapaksa brothers that kind of got Sri Lanka into this mess through, you know, a series of bad financial decisions, analysts say and just policies and tax cuts that were so out of sync with the financial reality of this country. But what you do now have is an acting president who's very closely aligned with that old guard who could very likely become the next president and he's declaring a state of emergency on -- you know, after they announced this protest.
So you've got police vehicles like this that are going to be standing out across Colombo and other areas of Sri Lanka where they're potentially expecting unrest. The state of emergency allows them to deploy police and military very quickly.
And we're going to be out here watching, seeing what happens. Is it going to be peaceful? Is there going to be violent suppression? Are there going to be more government buildings occupied like the presidential palace or are there going to be buildings set on fire because people are so angry here?
I mean these are all the questions we don't know the answers to. But that's why we're on the ground and we'll be bringing it to you as it happens.
HOLMES: Yes. And it is. It's great to have you there bringing us the realities of what Sri Lankans are going through. Extraordinary scenes.
Will, thank you. Will Ripley there in Colombo.
[01:39:47]
HOLMES: Now in the United Kingdom, Conservative members of Parliament will vote in the coming hours to eliminate another candidate as Boris Johnson's successor.
Mr. Johnson, you'll recall, stepped down earlier this month after a series of scandals. Right now, there are five Conservative contenders vying to be the next party leader and therefore the prime minister.
All five took part in this televised leadership debate on Sunday. Rishi Sunak has emerged as the front runner but there's a long way to go in this contest. After Monday's vote, members of parliament will keep voting and eliminate the candidate with the least support until there are just two left.
From there, card-carrying members of the Conservative Party will vote for Johnson's successor.
The Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to be in Iran on Tuesday for a meeting with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts. Russian officials are expected to provide more details in the hours ahead but the Kremlin said last week that Syria will be a major topic of discussion. The visit was announced just one day after the White House said it had intelligence indicating Iran plans to supply Russia with weapons-capable drones to use in Ukraine.
An urgent warning from health experts tens of millions of children worldwide are missing out on life-saving vaccines. We'll look at what's behind this troubling trend when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Chinese officials are rolling out additional mass testing in parts of the country where COVID infections are on the rise. More than 500 new local cases were reported on Monday despite the adherence to a strict zero-COVID policy Beijing is well known for enforcing. It also comes as a sweltering heat wave is ripping through the region.
CNN's Blake Essig joins me now from Tokyo with more.
So you've got the zero-COVID policy continuing and a heatwave at the same time. A bit of a perfect storm.
BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michael. That heat plus mandatory COVID testing in some spots are a combination of factors that could continue to put pressure on China's already strained health care system.
Over the past several days, CNN's weather team says a high pressure system created a heat dome over China with several provinces setting new all time record highs.
The good news is that temperatures are cooling but it's still going to be hot in the days to come. That means that millions of people who at times have waited outside in line for several hours in order to get tested for COVID will continue enduring extreme temperatures.
Same goes for the health care workers wearing full hazmat suits subjecting themselves to possible heat stroke. And according to videos posted on social media the heat has caused problems.
In one video you can actually see residents lined waiting to be tested for COVID actually fanning health care workers who are sitting slumped over, clearly suffering out in the heat.
[01:44:51]
ESSIG: Now nationwide over the weekend, more than a thousand new locally-transmitted cases were reported across the country. And at least 16 provinces have reported new local cases in the past two weeks.
In the special administrative region of Macao, authorities have extended its ongoing lockdown and mass testing through this Friday, meaning all non-essential businesses like casinos have had their operations suspended.
And while protocol varies by location, there are some cities in China that are currently requiring daily COVID testing. That includes Shanghai where people are worried about another round of mass lockdowns after 17 new cases were identified just in the past 24 hours. In an effort to prevent community spread, the city government said they're going to required a resident across 10 of the city's districts and from smaller areas undergo two rounds of COVID testing for COVID-19 over a three-day period this week. Whether daily testing is required, lockdown measures and COVID testing continues to impact people's lives in some cities, negatives tests are required to be presented to get into public venues and use public transportation.
Those negative tests need to have been completed in some cases, it has been 48 to 72 hours, meaning a regular testing must be continued even if it's not required to main some sort of sense of normalcy across China, Michael.
HOLMES: All right. Thanks for the update. Blake Essig there in Tokyo for us.
Now COVID cases are on the rise in the U.S. as the highly transmissible BA.5 variant becomes dominant. According to Johns Hopkins University, average daily cases have tripled over the past three months and the U.S. Health Department says hospital admissions due to COVID have surpassed 40,000 for the first time in about four months.
Now, the rapid spike of cases in Los Angeles County is forcing authorities there to consider bringing back mask mandates in the coming weeks.
CNN's Camila Bernal reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What's happening here in Los Angeles is that COVID-19 is once again spreading and spreading quickly. The BA.5 sub variant is the most contagious yet and you can see in the numbers. Here in Los Angeles County, about 9,000 cases are being reported every single day.
But the concern is the hospitalizations because the county says they've seen an increase of about 88 percent in comparison to last month. When it comes to deaths, they say that over the last week, they've reported about 14 deaths a day.
So when you take into consideration the cases of the hospitalizations and the deaths, it is very likely that L.A. County will reinstate their mask mandate. And what the county is saying is that they will look at the numbers over the next two weeks and if they increase, then masks will be back on in Los Angeles County.
Now, a lot of people that I've talked to say they will comply. They will wear that mask once again. But it is not going to be easy for the county because there are many others who say they do not want to wear a mask. And at the end of the day it is going to be the businesses, the schools, the stores, the gyms -- they will be dealing with a lot of these problems.
Camila Bernal, CNN -- Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Troubling new data showing that millions of children missed out on life saving vaccines last year. According to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, vaccine coverage overall continued to decline worldwide in 2021 with 25 million children missing on important vaccines, things like measles and so on.
The groups say "We're witnessing the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccination in about 30 years."
Joining me now, Lily Caprani. She is UNICEF head of advocacy for health vaccines and pandemic response.
You know, I was reading today an epidemiologist in Brazil said -- he said this quote, "The work of 30 years has been lost overnight."
Do you agree? And how alarmed are you at how big the drop off has been?
LILY CAPRANI, HEAD OF ADVOCACY FOR HEALTH VACCINES AND PANDEMIC RESPONSE, UNICEF: Well yes. UNICEF is very alarmed. We work with governments around the world to vaccinate half the world's children so we keep a close eye on how many children are getting immunized every year.
And we've seen the biggest drop in immunization rates in the whole generation sustained over the last two years.
So you might have expected at the beginning of the pandemic to see some of this. It's inevitable with some of the tough choices people had to make, the lockdown response. But after two and a half years, we really thought we'd see a recovery by now and the fact the numbers are still declining is really worrying.
HOLMES: Yes, exactly. Instead of numbers rebounding after the lockdowns, they went down even further. What are the factors behind the drop off? Obviously as you say the pandemic. But what about other reasons like misinformation at least in some countries?
[01:49:48]
CAPRANI: Yes. At the beginning of the pandemic, we still obviously, it's hard to get (INAUDIBLE) lots of parents have to make sacrifices and so did children. But what's really worrying is the number of health services that were diverted away from standard child services.
So just simply not having enough health care workers, not having enough resources to be able to do the pandemic response and keep up basic child immunization.
And then we have seen in some countries, perhaps an erosion of trust and thousands have questioned vaccinations but also this is such a widespread problem. We're seeing declines in over a hundred countries in the world. This is a really big global issue, not just in some pockets, a very widespread challenge that we should all be concerned about.
HOLMES: And let's be honest, we're talking about millions of unvaccinated kids. What are the risks to children globally of the drop off? I mean children will unnecessarily die, won't they? CAPRANI: Yes. The consequences of this will be measured in children's lives and not in three years' time but very soon. We're talking about lack of protection against some common childhood illnesses like measles and polio and diphtheria that sometimes we take it for granted that they aren't dangerous anymore. But as soon you have these big new outbreaks happening, the highly contagious illnesses -- and they can kill children. And we're already starting to see it happening.
So you know, we must take this very seriously. It's a huge risk to those children who are unvaccinated and to their communities as well.
HOLMES: Yes. I was going to ask you that. That is, if the decline isn't slowed, if instead it gets worse over the next few years. What will be the longer term impact on individuals but also as you say communities, nations for that matter.
CAPRANI: Well some of these illnesses will simply kill children. We will soon see children die this year if we don't rapidly take action. And it's not going to be enough to simply restore business as usual and just get back to standard practice.
We're going to need some very intensive focused effort to catch children up. We've got more than 25 million children in the last year missed out on vaccines. And that built year on year, the last two or three years we've really seen these declines. It has huge implications for them, for their health, for their communities' health. And we must calculate collectively and urgently.
We can't say we'll we beat one illness, COVID-19 and it came at the cost of all these other illnesses and that then take hold again. The cost of children's lives, that just can't be acceptable.
HOLMES: So then how best to effectively address the issue. And how long could it take to turn the situation around to regain that lost ground?
CAPRANI: Well, in some countries where there's enough money and resources to do, it's simply a case of it being (INAUDIBLE) prioritized. Other countries, they're going to really struggle and will need support from the international donors and the community to get money in to do it.
But it's going to take a very concerted effort, catch-up campaigns with those direct outreach, door to door, in the community, building the trust, building all of the confidence and reminding parents how dangerous these illnesses are and why it's so important to get your children immunized as soon as possible. It's essential
HOLMES: Yes. It's a matter literally of life and death.
Really appreciate you taking the time, Lily Caprani. Thank you so much.
Still to come here on the program, a rising young star reigned supreme at golf's oldest championship. Details on the incredible come from behind win by Cam Smith at St. Andrews. [01:53:20]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: One of golf's hottest young stars has won the sports oldest championships. Australia's Cameron Smith or Cam Smith as we all call him, overcame a four-shot deficit on Sunday to win the 150th Open championship at St. Andrews.
He used some plot patting (ph) and a streak of five straight birdies on the back 9. It was glorious to watch to beat the fan favorite Rory McIlroy and the American Cameron Young.
Smith Spoke to our Alex Thomas after hoisting the claret jug.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEX THOMAS, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Cameron Smith, champion golfer of the year. Not quite (INAUDIBLE) where it's been.
CAMERON SMITH, WINNER 150TH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP: Yes. It's unreal, mate. That I'd be holding this thing, especially here in St. Andrews is definitely a dream come true that it's been an unreal week.
THOMAS: You shot lowest ever, final round score, for an Open champion here at St. Andrews. You broke Tiger Woods' total record score for an Open here at the home of golf. You're already the fifth Aussie ever to win the Open. And the first since 1993.
What does it mean to write your name in the history in such a big way?
SMITH: Yes. Really comforting in the words (ph), to be honest. You know, all of that stuff not -- I don't really know what I'll put it down to. Just a little of hard work and really staying in there. I had good luck, nine holes. So this (INAUDIBLE). Everything that (INAUDIBLE) golf course was great. And how I had to bring it back here.
THOMAS: Your first major comes in the 150th Open at the home of gold. what are you going to do to top that? Where do you go from here?
SMITH: Yes. I mean it's definitely going to be a tough one to beat. That's for sure. But you know we'll think of that one. That's what I'm counting (ph) but yes, it's going to be very tough to beat.
THOMAS: Like it's the only thing that would have made the day better is if your family could have been here but it's all right with you.
SMITH: Yes. Yes, absolutely. My dad was actually meant to come this week and he's kind of pulled out last minute though he's kicking himself now. So yes, I can't wait to get back and celebrate with him.
THOMAS: He'll never make that mistake again.
Congratulations, Cam. Appreciate it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: And he won me a few bucks in local pub pool as we say. Go you good thing, Cam Smith. We're all celebrating.
Thank you for spending part of your day with me. I'm Michael Holmes. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @HolmesCNN.
Do stick around. My colleague, Lynda Kinkade is coming up next because you can never have too many Australians.
[01:57:34]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
