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Guarded Hopes That Contentious Grain Deal Will Hold On Ukraine; Advanced U.S.-Supplied Rocket Systems Helping Ukraine; Pope Francis Asks For Forgiveness From Canada's Indigenous People. U.N.: At Least 471 People Killed, Injured Or Missing. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired July 26, 2022 - 00:00   ET

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

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[23:59:34]

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up this hour on CNN NEWSROOM.

Frozen conflict, is the war in the eastern Ukraine grinding down to a standstill? Why that could be good news for Vladimir Putin.

Apology tour, Pope Francis begs Canada's indigenous community to forgive the evil committed by Christians, which destroyed their cultures, ripped families apart and left tens of thousands physically and emotionally scarred for life.

And parts of the U.S., a scorching weekend was just the warm up. There's much worse to come. While elsewhere in the country, severe thunderstorms and strong gusty winds will bring some relief.

[00:00:17]

ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.

VAUSE: Despite a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa over the weekend, it seems a deal to end a Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain exports is holding. U.N. expects first shipments to take place this week.

The Turkish president who helped broker the deal along with the United Nations is urging Russia and Ukraine to act responsibly and honor their commitments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FARHAN HAQ, DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON FOR U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: All parties have reconfirmed their commitment to the initiative. The Government of Turkey has generously provided a physical space for the Joint Coordination Center where operations are being established now.

By tomorrow, all parties and the U.N. will have a presence in the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul.

We expect the first ships may move within a few days, the Joint Coordination Center will be liaising with the shipping industry and publishing detailed procedures for ships in the very near future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ukraine says it's ready to resume exports but the president says Turkey and the United Nations must guarantee security in the Black Sea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We will definitely start exporting to once again prove to the whole world that it is not Ukraine that is blocking exports. These are the narratives that disinformation on the Russian side is spreading. We will start exporting and let partners take care of security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The three ports you see here will be ready to export grain in the coming weeks according to Ukrainian officials. That includes Odesa, the target of the recent Russian attack.

And Russia's Foreign Minister says that strike did not violate the grain deal. He says the targets were in the so-called military part of the Odesa port, not the grain terminal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): If we talk about the episode that took place in Odesa, there is nothing in the obligations that Russia has taken on, including within the framework of the agreement signed on July 22nd in Istanbul, which would prohibit us from continuing the special military operation, destroying military infrastructure and other military targets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Sergey Lavrov's remarks came during his visit to the Republic of Congo, the second stop on his tour of Africa. He's trying to boost support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, even though African countries are among those suffering the most from the food crisis caused by part by the lack of Ukrainian grain.

One Ukrainian official says Lavrov's trip is the quintessence of sadism, accusing Russia of creating an artificial hunger and then coming over to cheer people up.

The grain deal marks the most significant agreement that's been reached since the beginning of the war, but will it hold?

CNN's Nic Robertson looks at the possible scenarios.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice over): Despite Russia's missile strikes in Odesa Saturday, Ukraine's officials are vowing to push ahead with the U.N. deal to get grain from their ports to the world's needy.

OLEKSANDR KUBRAKOV, UKRAINIAN INFRASTRUCTURE MINISTER: I hope that during the upcoming days, we will start delivering grain from our ports in Odesa.

ROBERTSON: But Russian missiles aren't the only obstacle creating uncertainty about Russia's commitment. Russia's Foreign Minister asserting nothing in the deal prevents them hitting military targets in Odesa, and misinformation too, claiming rights for Russian ships not in the agreement.

LAVROV: In the open sea, Russia, Turkey, together with another participant which is to be determined to accompany the convoys to the straits.

KUBRAKOV: So, we won't allow to do this, our territorial waters and our sea ports, only Ukraine and Ukrainian Navy will be there.

ROBERTSON: So, no Russian ships escorting the convoys anywhere along the convoy?

KUBRAKOV: No, Russian ships at all in this process.

ROBERTSON: Ukraine's plan B to export grain by train, truck and river is still in play. But like the U.N. deal, this too is beset by uncertainty. Train cars full of grain had been shelled by Russia and tracks blown up.

KUBRAKOV: We are again, doing our best. We're trying to export more through our venue ports with the help of our railway, Ukrainian railways company and by trucks.

ROBERTSON: If the U.N. deal to export grain from the ports can hold, Ukrainian officials estimate the value to their beleaguered nation could be a much needed billion dollars a month.

[00:05:01]

ROBERTSON (on camera): Ukraine's agrarian Minister says he expects farmers to be able to start selling their grain to shippers within days. He says that corn prices have already gone up 20 to 30 percent and expects by the end of the week, wheat will have gone up 10 percent.

Thousands of miles away, millions of people are counting on Russia not to block the deal.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: On the battlefield, Ukraine claims for making progress against the Russians in the Kherson region, taking out three bridges and slowing Russian vehicles and heavy equipment.

Ukraine also claims its toggling ammunition warehouses, missile systems and command posts. Ukrainian forces say they've liberated a village on the frontline and the Mykolaiv region when soldier says they're holding on despite being outgunned and outnumbered by the Russians.

Joining us now for a closer look at the battlefield in Ukraine is CNN Military Analyst General James Spider Marks who served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. Good to see you.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you, John, very much good to see you as well.

VAUSE: Thank you. Now, in one specific way, the U.S. supplied HIMARS long range rocket system has helped the Ukrainians, it's been too slow the flow of ammunition for Russian artillery. HIMARS have targeted railheads, which is where the ammunition moves from train to trucks. And until now, those Russian railheads were about an hour's drive from the front, they've now been pushed way back. And this is not insignificant.

But these measures, these gains if you like, they seem to fall well short of what's needed for the Ukrainians to actually defeat the Russians.

MARKS: Yes, absolutely, John, what's really required is what's known as the three dimensional battlefield, the advances that are being made by the Ukrainians on the ground are quite significant. They've been able to hold the Russians where they are, they've been able to achieve some tactical success, which is what you just described of targeting the Russians as deeply as they can through weapon systems like the HIMARS, it's a very precision artillery but it's not deep enough.

What they really need. And this discussion has been on the table for months and months, is they need to be able to strike from the air, they need fighters so they can go much deeper to really disrupt the Russian ability to get its act together, get all its logistics in place as far away as the Russians would like to do in sanctuary. That's what it's called. And that might be in Russia itself, so that they can then move those logistics forward and really take the momentum away from the Ukrainian.

So, the Ukrainians are doing a good job of holding them but they're not taking the operational momentum away from the Russians.

VAUSE: Phase two of Russia's military offensive to try and take the Donbas region, it's moving about as quickly as the rate of drying paint.

And for example, the Russian offensive to take Severodonetsk and Lysychansk began around May 6th, the Ukrainians held out for 58 days before retreating and allowing both cities to fall under Russian control.

If you do the math here, the Russians were moving the frontline forward about 500 meters a day. They gained about 30 kilometers over that period of time. So, and now with the high HIMARS, that Russian advances slowly even

further. Are we heading towards a frozen conflict like the Korean War? And if that's the case, it would seem that that would be one of the worst outcomes for the Ukrainians.

MARKS: Well, you know, that's a term that -- a term of art, a descriptive term of what we're seeing. This is not dissimilar for from a World War I battlefield.

If you look -- if you go back to January 1st of this year, what was happening in the Donbas over the course of the eight previous years had really been a frozen conflict along trench lines, right? So, we've seen it, both the Ukrainians and the Russians and the separatists supported by the Russians were really frozen in place.

And so, what we see happening in Ukraine right now is an outcome that looks like it could be inevitable unless the Ukrainians can really arrest this operational momentum from the Russians albeit not great in terms of distance and space and geography that they're taking over. But the Russians aren't going anywhere. Even the small games, they're not going anywhere. And the only way to do that is to really reach that much deeper.

So, the Ukrainians are moving into a position where the ultimate outcome might be what we see right now over the court frozen what we see right now over the course of the next several years, both sides, the Russians, and the Ukrainians think they are winning. And they have a narrative that says they're winning. It's quite compelling.

The Ukrainian narrative is, the Russians were defeated in Kyiv. They've been pushed back in a number of areas, they're now concentrated exclusively in the Donbas.

The Russians are saying, well, that was our plan all along. And look what we've done, we've pushed from the Donbas down to Kherson, they've created this land bridge.

So, as a result of that, neither side is in a position to really want to negotiate. This is an outcome that I think we're going to be living with for some time.

VAUSE: So, the pressure is not just on the Ukrainians over the coming weeks and months to do something here to wrap up the offensive, but also on NATO, and the U.S.

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MARKS: Well, absolutely. What the United States and NATO is doing, I mean, frankly, it's quite impressive. But they are providing the systems that the Ukrainians need to provide a very aggressive defense, so they're holding very effectively.

And the offensive capabilities are at the tactical level. And without getting into too much baseball here inside baseball. Again, as I've indicated, the Ukrainians need to be able to strike deeply and at a place of their choosing. And right now, the Russians have decided all of that. Primarily, the

Russians are using artillery, they just back off and start lobbying a bunch of artillery, dumb weapon systems at the Ukrainians to include hospitals and synagogues, and places of worship and schools, etcetera. I mean, it's abysmal. It's tragic. And it's unthinkable.

But that's what the Russians do. And this will remain like that until the Ukrainians can break that and force and separate the Russian ability to logistically support itself and maneuver.

VAUSE: Yes, so there's some interesting times coming ahead in this conflict. We'll see what happens. General Marks, as always, thank you, sir.

MARKS: Thank you, John, very much.

VAUSE: Russia has announced another cutting gas supplies to Germany. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline only just reopened after a 10-day maintenance shutdown.

Now, state control Gazprom says gas flows will reduce by half to fix another turbine. The Kremlin insists this is routine maintenance, not politics, but adds European sanctions are making matters worse. A current levels of supply Germany will not be able to meet needs for the coming winter.

Ukraine's president accuses Russia of waging an overt gas war in Europe. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the latest move is part of a wider effort by Moscow that amounts to forms of terror.

When we come back, Pope Francis apologizes in person to Canada's indigenous people for the Catholic Church's role in what today is being called cultural genocide. More on that in a moment.

Also ahead, gang violence causing thousands to flee Haiti's capital as hundreds more or dead, injured or missing with the federal government unable to do a thing.

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VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. Pope Francis has formally apologized in Canada on what he called the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples. He was speaking Monday to a largely indigenous audience in Maskwacis, Alberta. The community was a site of one of Canada's now infamous residential schools.

The country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has found that more than 4,000 indigenous children died from neglect or abuse in those schools. Most were run by the Catholic Church.

Children there were harmed sexually and physically, as well as emotionally separated from their families forced to adopt white culture and for that, the Pope personally apologized.

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POPE FRANCIS, LEADER OF CATHOLIC CHURCH (through translator): It is painful to think of how the firm soil of values language and culture that made up the authentic identity of your peoples was eroded, and that you have continued to pay the price of this.

In the face of this deplorable evil, the church kneels before God and implores His forgiveness for the sins of her children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The Pope also prayed at a cemetery and apologized again at a church in Edmonton. The Ottawa-based Congress of Aboriginal Peoples welcomed the apologies, but call for concrete action from the church, including reparations and accountability.

But even with the Pope's visit this week, the process of discovery and reckoning goes on. While the search for unmarked graves of Indigenous children continues, survivors of the residential school system are still coping with the memories and the trauma they endured.

CNN's Paula Newton has this report.

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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): It has taken the high tech tools of this century for Canadian soil to give up the torturous secrets of the last.

Drones hovering, swooping, mapping, ground penetrating radar peering into every layer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see if there's any disturbances in that soil structure.

NEWTON: Disturbances. These are soil anomalies that could lead to the unmarked graves of indigenous children. Those who were once students of Fort Alexander residential school in the Sagkeeng First Nation in the province of Manitoba.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you have 109 dead anomalies, there's got to be something.

RITA GUZMAN, RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR: Going this way.

NEWTON: The Catholic institution is no longer standing, but its survivors want you to know what it stood for, abuse of all kinds that a government report found amounted to cultural genocide.

That's where the priest stayed.

NEWTON: Rita Guzman (PH) was just six when she arrived. The abuse started soon after.

GUZMAN: And he'd have us sit on his lap. And meanwhile, he had his hand under our skirts. NEWTON: Patrick Bruyere was seven. He endured eight years.

PATRICK BRUYERE, RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR: Then, he got me drunk. And I didn't know what the hell happened when I got up the next morning.

NEWTON: Sarah Mazerolle was six forced to stay until she was 14.

SARAH MAZEROLLE, RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR: Bam right across the face every morning. She did that to me.

NEWTON: Henry Boubard is 80 now, just seven when the nightmare started.

HENRY BOUBARD, RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR: After what the priest did to me, sexually. You know? It changed everything.

MAZEROLLE: You have to survive if you're going to live. You have to find ways to get over everything that was being done to you.

BRUYERE: Well, it was all prayer, it was all behave yourself. It was all don't speak their language because if you do, you will get punished you know, and a lot of humiliation.

BOUBARD: These nuns told me to pray, to pray, to pray. But pray? What is prayer? I know means nothing to me. If you don't pray, you'll go to hell.

I thought all these years I was living in hell and not in the residential school. This is hell to me.

NEWTON: Hundreds of victims like these from one school, and they were dozens of these institutions across Canada most run by the Catholic Church. More than 150,000 indigenous children were forced to leave their families and were subjected to forced labor, neglect and sexual and physical abuse and thousands just went missing.

In the past year, several indigenous communities have discovered hundreds of unmarked graves and more searches are underway.

The survivors of Fort Alexander were too young to know where children went and why, there remain unmarked crosses in the cemetery made from the old school pipes, who lays there.

So, here too during the very week Pope Francis is on Canadian soil to apologize, they scour the land.

It is with these high tech tools that indigenous communities throughout Canada hope that they can get the spiritual homecoming that their lost children deserve, something that no papal apology can give them.

The Pope arrives with a singular purpose he says, that of penance. But for decades, there was impunity. Very few staff members were ever prosecuted. And that inflicts further trauma some survivors say and then there's the fact this in-person apology took years. JOE DANIELS, RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVOR: This thing had to be dragged out or dispersed. Somebody had to go to Rome to go and -- to go and practically beg this guy to come here and apologize. Why couldn't he have done it on his own from here?

NEWTON: As extraordinary as the Pope's pilgrimage to Canada may be, it stands diminished by the scope of the abuse that is already known, and the corpse still to be discovered.

Paula Newton, CNN, Sagkeeng First Nation, Manitoba.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:20:06]

VAUSE: To Alberta, Canada now and we're joined this hour by Brandi Morin, an award winning journalist and author of Our Voice of Fire. Brandi, thank you for being with us. I know it's been a big day for you because this story is very personal and direct connection to you. Your grandmother attended one of the schools. She was alive today and she heard the apology from Pope Francis. What would be her reaction? What would she say?

BRANDI MORIN, AWARD WINNING CREE/IROQUOIS/ FRENCH JOURNALIST: Well, I think that she would be grateful. I think that she would cry. And I think that she would be proud. She would be proud of all the survivors that are still standing today.

VAUSE: Did she ever share with you what she went through?

MORIN: It was very little, she always referred to it as the convent. And I never really understood what that was. She passed away in 2008. And it wasn't until after then, that I learned what a residential school was, many of us were in the dark about it, many of the intergenerational you know, survivors are -- the survivors themselves didn't talk about it a whole lot. These were very, you know, traumatic experiences that they went through.

So, she shared bits and pieces with me. But it's something that I, you know, dug deeper into when I got into my journalism career, and started exclusively telling Indigenous stories.

VAUSE: You know, an apology is always a good start. But the Pope was clearly asking for forgiveness for the actions of members of the church, not the church itself. He also made it clear that the missionaries at the time were implementing a government policy.

And this may be a little harsh, but it's almost like they were just following orders. And there has been a bit of criticism for that. How did you see it? Was that disappointing anyway?

MORIN: Yes, there are some people that, you know, are accusing the Catholic Church of not taking the full responsibility that it should be. The Catholic Church administered over 60 percent of the Indian residential schools in the country. Very few of the clergy members and staff that perpetuated these abuses against children have ever been prosecuted or held to account.

So, there are a lot of outstanding grievances. You know, they -- oftentimes, these institutions, you know, try to shift the blame, you know, from one to another.

But in actuality, I was, you know, pretty surprised by Pope Francis's speech today. But there was something very significant that he left out that I noticed immediately, and survivors started contacting me immediately when he referred to the abuses perpetuated against his children, he said, verbal, physical and spiritual abuse, and he did not reference sexual abuse.

And we know that sexual abuse was rapid in these institutions. And there are many survivors who are very upset about that.

VAUSE: And understandably, so, Pope Francis did call for a serious investigation. But it's sort of isn't clear if that means church personnel records will be open to identify priests and nuns who are guilty of abuse. And you touched on this, how important is it right now, to hold those responsible accountable for what they did?

MORIN: It is very important, a lot of the you know, survivors are getting older, they're passing away, some are still as young as I am, if you can, believe it or not, the last school closed in 1997.

But, you know, there happens to be a fugitive priest that's hiding out in France right now. He's in his early 90s. And he's living comfortably at a Catholic run nursing home. He's accused of molesting Inuit children. His name is Father Johannes Rivoire. And France will not extradite him.

So, the Inuit leadership has asked Pope Francis, they asked him in Rome to intervene in this case, to force Rivoire to return to Canada to face trial.

So, I think with this apology, a lot of people are expecting it to be endorsed with actions like this.

VAUSE: Just very quickly, the words the demeanor, the emotion, everything from Pope Francis that you saw, it does seem that he at least understands the trauma that so many have suffered.

MORIN: Yes, so I was less than 10 feet away from him today when he visited the former site of the Ermineskin Cree Nation Indian Residential School.

And, you know, I did get a sense of his sincerity in those moments. I had a sense of his sincerity in Rome. I was in Rome, you know, on April 1st when he gave -- first gave that historic apology.

[00:25:13]

And, you know, he is being, you know, very -- he's not beating around the bush when it comes to acknowledging the -- you know, the violence that the Catholic Church endorsed. And so, I think a lot of people are, you know, taking notice of that. VAUSE: Brandi, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate your time, especially on a day like this. Thank you.

MORIN: Thank you.

VAUSE: In one neighborhood of Haiti's capital in just over one week, nearly 500 people either killed, hurt or went missing amid a surge of gang violence.

For years, rival gangs have fought for control over parts of Port-au- Prince. But the U.N. now reports the Palace of Justice, home to the city's main court is now under gain control.

More details down from CNN's Matt Rivers.

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MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We're getting some new information from the United Nations that's giving us a little bit more insight into what is happening in a neighborhood of the Haitian capital city of Port-au-Prince called Cite Soleil. This is a neighborhood one of the most impoverished in the entire country. Several 100,000 People live in Cite Soleil.

And it was earlier this month that gang violence broke out in and around that neighborhood. And it really put the neighborhood directly in its crosshairs with levels of violence that were just staggering.

And the United Nation says that from July 8th to July 17th alone, just a nine-day period, some 471 people were either killed, injured or unaccounted for. They say roughly 3,000 people were forced to flee their homes in Cite Soleil, including hundreds of unaccompanied children, we know that dozens of homes were also destroyed.

Now, Cite Soleil is a neighborhood that often relies on deliveries of food, water, aid to be brought into that neighborhood because it is already a very poor place. And what this violence has done, or did rather was cut off that neighborhood from the rest of Port-au-Prince.

Now, the U.N. says it has had some recent success in getting deliveries of aid into Cite Soleil starting on July 19th. They say they were able to deliver hundreds of thousands of liters of water, food, deliveries, some aid deliveries as well. But they say it's really just a drop in the bucket and they're calling on a more longer term solution to this crisis.

Now, we reached out to Haiti's federal government to ask what are you doing about this situation and they would not even respond to our requests for comment on the issue. They've been largely silent publicly.

Although, the mayor of Cite Soleil told us that the federal government has basically done nothing to help the several 100,000 people that are have essentially been held hostage by this recent gang violence. The mayor said that the federal government is either unwilling or unable to help those people. Matt Rivers, CNN, Mexico City.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Two men have been arrested for human smuggling of the Bahamas. Police say their vessel capsized while carrying dozens of Haitian migrants. 17 people died including a child.

The boat was found off the coast of New Providence early Sunday morning according to the Bahamian Prime Minister. He says the accident involving suspected human smuggling operation and the boat was likely headed to Miami in Florida.

The execution of for pro-democracy leaders and activists in Myanmar has sparked international outrage. In addition to public protests, the U.K., E.U., United States and at least seven other countries have issued a joint statement condemning Myanmar's first executions in three decades.

Here it reads: Myanmar's military regime's executions of pro-democracy and opposition leaders are reprehensible acts of violence that further exemplify the regime's disregard for human rights and the rule of law.

We urge the regime to release all those unjustly detained, grant full and independent access to prisons and fulfill its obligations under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Five-Point Consensus to seek peace through dialogue, not further violence.

ASEAN holds its ministerial meeting next week and the chair says the timing of these executions is reprehensible and a setback to achieving those consensus goals.

Still ahead, the heat wave baking Europe is fueling wildfires across the south. Could relief be on the way soon? We'll have a look at the forecast when we come back.

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VAUSE: Welcome back to viewers all around the world. And I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

[00:31:55]

Brutal heatwaves continue to blanket parts of the United States, Europe, and China, bringing dangerous temperatures and fueling destructive wildfires. More than 30 million people in the United States are currently under heat alerts.

And in California, fast-moving Oak Fire has forced at least 3,000 people to leave their homes. Fire has already burned more than 17,000 acres. Right now, it's 16 percent attained.

In Europe, crews are still working to contain wildfires raging around Greece. And parts of Spain, Portugal, and Italy are all under very extreme dangerous of fire warnings. CNN Barbie Nadeau reports now from Rome. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It looks like another hot week here in Southern Europe, where these temperatures just don't seem to let up.

NADEAU (voice-over): Now, they've gotten a reprieve in the North and in the United Kingdom. They were hit so hard last week with these high temperatures.

But, in Southern Italy, in Greece, and Slovenia, they're really, really still struggling with these extreme conditions. And with these extreme conditions, continue the risk of fire. We've had fires throughout Italy that have caused evacuations of people in Tuscany and Umbria and near Rome over the weekend.

Now, they're looking at temperatures to continue throughout the week, without any reprieve at all. So there's not much to look forward to yet. We're hoping that, by the end of the week, there will be some drop in the temperatures and some better news for those firefighters --

NADEAU: -- that are working under extreme conditions.

Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: China is being hit on two fronts. Temperatures are soaring to 40 degrees Celsius, and a COVID surge is stoking fears of more lockdowns could be on the way.

For more, let's go to CNN's Beijing bureau chief, Steven Jiang, live for us this hour.

So there's a lot here going on. We've got the COVID lockdown possibilities and these temperatures, as well. And they're coming together at precisely a really bad time.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes. You know, John, many would argue this double whammy, if you will, neither of which is entirely caused by natural causes.

This heat wave, obviously, has been linked to climate change by many experts. And it is very extraordinary to see how unrelenting and widespread it's been. Really, for many places here, it's been going on for more than a month. And it's hitting nearly every corner of this vast country, from the East to the South, to the Northwest.

Again, nearly 60 Chinese cities have issued their highest level alert for Tuesday, meaning temperatures in their locations could surpass 40 degrees Celsius. And in one extreme example, caught on video, this bridge in Quanzhou in Southeastern China was seen buckling under a strain of intense heat over the weekend.

So not surprising that many people here are trying to escape the heat by flocking to beach towns, especially to the island of Hainan, often nicknamed China's Hawaii.

I just come back from there, and the resorts there are literally filled with domestic travelers, very much undeterred by the challenges of traveling in China these days, thanks to the government's strict zero-COVID policy.

But as you mentioned, there is a resurgence of COVID cases across the country, with the health ministry on Tuesday reporting more than 800 locally-transmitted cases.

[00:35:05]

That -- so that's an alarmingly high number for this country, which is also why we are seeing lockdowns and mass testing making a comeback in many cities, including in Shanghai, which of course, just came out of a two-month brutal lockdown on June 1.

But already, for the past few weeks, they've been dealing with a stubborn new outbreak, with the authorities there ordering several rounds of mass testing for much of the city's 25 million people.

And the latest round of testing happening today, from Tuesday through Thursday, when the temperatures, again, supposed to approach 40 degrees.

So John, obviously, very unpleasant experience to have to line up outdoors to get tested -- John.

VAUSE: Did you stay at the Comiskey (ph) Hotel in Sanya (ph)? I do.

JIANG: No, I was actually at a hidden gem. I'll tell you all about that.

VAUSE: OK. Email me. Thank you, Steven, Steven Jiang in Beijing, appreciate it.

Let's go to meteorologist Pedram Javaheri now with, I guess, the all- important forecast. What can we expect? Look, it's going to be hot. We know that, right? The question is how hot and how bad?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you know, the so-called San Fu (ph) is taking place, John. This is the time of year the Chinese will tell you all about it. It translates into just the three periods across the summer months that you want to lay low, essentially. Because from mid-July through mid-August, you've got the hottest temperatures. You've got the highest humidity. And it's really here to stay.

You take a look at pattern, of course this portion of the year, climatologically speaking, is the hottest across the Northern Hemisphere.

And across Hong Kong in particular, we had three consecutive days where a new record was set, from Friday into Saturday, into Sunday. Every single day, beat an all-time record for Hong Kong. Finally reaching 37.4 degrees, which it's never reached that high for Hong Kong on Sunday afternoon.

But it is cooling off just a little bit. We do expect coverage for thunderstorm activity to pick up. And you'll notice across areas of Hangzhou, work your way a little farther towards a Thursday and Friday. We see those temps drop off from about 41 to 40 degrees, eventually down 38 and 36.

So plenty warm, but it is noticeably going to be cooler here towards the latter half of the week.

In around Guangzhou, certainly looks like it's going to cool down slightly. And Hong Kong stays relatively into the middle 30s, where it had been in the upper 30.

So again, brief periods of what we call breaks across this region are going to be taking place.

And you'll notice the showers and thunderstorms really do pick up in coverage here over the next several days, and a really more notable trend of cool weather comes in across Chongqing, where temps go from 40 degrees this afternoon down to 32. And eventually settle back around, say, 36 to 37 degrees.

So this is the time of year, if you're a fan of heat, it is your time. But if you're not, going to have to kind of endure this over the next week or so.

And trying to cross areas of Europe has been a bit better here, especially the Northern tier of Europe. Much cooler air, shifting in from the North and West, has set the stage for a nice morning across Paris and London. Sixteen to 17 degrees.

Warmer really expected across the South of France, Southern areas of Spain, as well. In fact, in Italy, still seeing some heat alerts across this region. Level twos for a medium alert for excessive heat on the Northern tier of Italy.

And coverage for the drought monitor across Europe, also shows you lots of red, lots of orange, which are all indicative of the drought situation that has really become extreme across the region. So fire weather concerns, of course, remain very high.

And some images here of dried-up riverbed across Switzerland to show for it, as well.

Notice Spain, these Southern areas well into the 40s. So really, an entirely different story than what's happening across the North and West, where temps have come back down into kind of the reality zone where temps are back into the twenties where they belong here in the latter portion of July.

We leave you with this. We have had a few thunderstorms with the incoming system that has cooled off the weather. Germany, look at this John. Two, three-centimeter diameter hailstorms across this region as a result of some severe weather.

So if it's not one thing, it's another. But at least the temps there have cooled off a little bit.

VAUSE: Yes, if you're a fan of heat. But if you're not a fan of heat, I suggest you learn how to be a fan of heat real fast.

Pedram, thank you. Appreciate the update.

Well, a key architect of the historic Good Friday peace agreement has died. David Trimble won the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, along with the late John Hume, for efforts to end decades of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland.

Trimble served as Northern Ireland's first minister and led the Ulster Unionist Party for a decade. He was 77 years old.

We'll take a short break. When we come back on CNN NEWSROOM, going nowhere fast. What's causing major flight cancellations across the U.S. East Coast, as well as Germany. Hmm.

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VAUSE: The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog tells CNN the organization has no information on what Iran is doing with is nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that it doesn't have visibility on Tehran's uranium enrichment and wants Iran to restore all inspections.

In June, the Iranian government began removing inspection equipment installed as part is the 2015 nuclear deal. That includes cameras. Tehran says the cameras will stay off until the nuclear deal is back on. But chances of that are looking slim.

The Biden administration says the window for a deal is closing rapidly.

Storms that hit the Eastern United States on Monday are being blamed for the cancellation of more than 1,200 flights. More than 7,000 others were delayed. That's according to Flight Aware website.

The airports most affected are LaGuardia and Newark in the New York area, as well as Reagan National near Washington, D.C.

Travelers at Germany's major airport should expect flight delays and cancellations on Wednesday due to a planned strike against Lufthansa Airline.

The union, Verdi, has called on ground staff to stage an all-day nationwide warning strike to bring attention to its demand for a wage increase.

A senior U.N. official Lufthansa ground crews need relief from being overworked due to staff shortages and a three-year-long wage freeze.

Lufthansa is offering free rebookings for passengers, which they admit will be difficult during the peak travel season.

Eurovision 2023 is moving to the U.K. But only because it wouldn't be safe for Ukraine to host it. That makes sense.

Ukraine group Kalush Orchestra won the contest this year, meaning their home country should host Europe's biggest music event next year. But there is a war, and organizers asked the U.K. to host on Ukraine's behalf.

Britain came in second and says the event will be a true reflection on Ukrainian culture. Good for them.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. Please stay with us. I'm John Vause. I will be back with a lot more news at the top of the hour. In the meantime, WORLD SPORT is up next. See you in a bit.

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