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Voting Ending in Sham Annexation Referendums; Kremlin Acknowledges Mistakes in Troop Mobilization; Iran Widens Crackdown as Protests and Dissent Grow; Stagnant Flood Waters Causing Health Crisis in Pakistan; Jude Rules Arizona Can Enforce Ban on Most Abortions; U.S. Gas Prices Back on the Rise After Weeks of Decline. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired September 27, 2022 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
PAULA NEWTON CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton. If you're joining us, let me bring you right up to date with our top stories at this hour.
Now Hurricane Ian now a category 3 storm and it's making landfall right now over western Cuba. Ian is expected to gain strength before hitting Florida. And authorities in the U.S. are warning Ian will bring a deadly storm surge in addition to the heavy rain winds and flooding. Now evacuation orders have been put in place right across the state and residents are being warned this could be a once in a lifetime storm.
Now in parts of Ukraine separatists are wrapping up what are widely considered sham referenda votes to join Russia. Now that includes those in the Russian occupied Kherson region, which according to the Ukrainian military has been completely closed for entry and exit. Ukraine and Western countries like the U.S. have condemned the Russian-backed referenda saying they won't recognize the results.
This as Russia faces growing opposition at home over its chaotic troop mobilization. Now the Kremlin has acknowledged mistakes have been made in the draft and says regional governors are trying to fix the situation. And in fact, an influential Russian TV host has criticized the effort calling some of the conscription organizers, quote, idiots.
CNN's Clare Sebastian joins me now with more and there is a lot to track there. I want to get to this issue of these staged votes. But also, the fact that Ukraine is pressing on with its counter offensive in those very areas.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely Paula. President Zelenskyy has said that the Donetsk region is now the priority for Ukraine. Because he says, this is the number one priority for Russia. Russia for a long time has stated that those two regions Donetsk and Luhansk that make up the Donbass, are its key strategic aim in this conflict. It was able to take over the Luhansk region and declared victory at the beginning of July. Although we've seen some Ukrainian pushes into that territory, given it never fully took over the Donetsk region, so that seems to be the stated aim there.
President Zelenskyy saying that they are -- they intend to thwart all enemy activity. And there was also a report from the Russian TASS news agency, Paula, that Ukraine had shelled a school that was operating as a polling station in the referendum in the Luhansk region -- we can't of course verify that report. But if true it suggests that Ukraine is also trying to thwart the referendums that are ongoing. In terms of those referendums, Russia is reporting very high levels of turnouts, and obviously the state news agencies this morning reporting turnouts in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the 80s and the other two regions Kherson, Zaporizhzhia in the 60s as well.
Though of course, we are getting those reports of those regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, both are areas where entry or exit are either blocked or facing difficulty according to the Ukrainian authorities. So, these are not free and fair elections they are not going to be recognized by Western countries. But Russia is pushing ahead and so for calling them a success -- Paula.
NEWTON: And it was likely a forgone conclusion. And Clare, we are hearing though even for within Russia, you know, some culpability saying that, look, we admit this mobilization isn't going according to plan.
SEBASTIAN: Yes, it's not an apology. It's an acknowledgment of problems in the execution of the mobilization plans, the decree as the Kremlin calls it. Which wanted people only who have military experience. Who will have served in the reserves and on the battlefield to be called up as part of this 300,000 mobilization that they announced last week.
Apparently, that's not happening. There have been multiple reports of people who aren't eligible being called up. And the Kremlin acknowledged, that Dmitry Peskov say that regional governors are working on this. And look closely at that because regional governors are essentially who he's blaming here. And we heard the same from Vladimir Solovyov similar sentiment -- that influential talk show host -- is also trying to scapegoat. Saying that the people who were involved in this mobilization are idiots. He said that he didn't want to blame President Putin. He essentially advised anyone who wanted to put the blame on the supreme commander, he said to not do that. So, scapegoating going on here.
NEWTON: Yes, all of that as at this hour there are Russian citizens lining up for hours to get out of the country. Our Clare Sebastian there. Thanks for the update, appreciate it.
[04:35:00]
Now defiance remain strong right across Iran despite Tehran's widening and brutal crackdown of antigovernment protests that have now stretched into their second week. It began after the death of 22-year- old Mahsa Amini who was in the custody of Iran's morality police. Now her family has blamed police brutality. Authorities claim she had a heart attack. Regardless, the public anger over her death has exploded into the largest protest Iran has seen in three years. State media report at least 41 people have died in the unrest. Although CNN cannot independently verify those numbers. And the Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 20 journalists have been arrested now by Iranian authorities amid these protests.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States will provide Pakistan with $10 million of aid for food, security in the wake of the catastrophic flooding there. Blinken says the supplies will help farmers recover with such items as seeds and fertilizer. Now the extreme flooding has claimed more than six lives. Our report now from Anna Coren.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the scorching heat, a couple carry their listless child towards a packed wooden boat, ferrying sick villagers through the floodwaters.
The mother grabs her daughter and finds a place to sit. The 8-year-old is burning up. "She's got a high-grade fever and has become unconscious," explains her mother.
"Let's go, let's go," yells a villager.
The mother then wets her daughter's brow with the very same water that has made her so sick.
Pakistan's months-long catastrophic floods that inundated one-third of the country, affecting 33 million people, are still causing unspeakable suffering. The monsoonal rains may be over but the volume of stagnant water is now causing a health crisis, especially in Sindh one of the worst-hit provinces in the country's Southeast, where cases of cholera, dengue and dehydration have surged.
AADARSH LAGHAN, UNICEF COMMUNICATION OFFICER: I have seen families and children consume the very floodwater that they are surrounded by. And that is what -- because they don't have access to any other water source.
COREN (voice-over): As they reach the shore, it's a race against time. The nearest hospital is hours away by rickshaw and her daughter's condition is worsening.
These young mothers have found medical care, although their newborns barely have the energy to cry. They've come to the Nawabshah Mother and Child Hospital where the critically ill are taken to the resuscitation ward. A baby's chest slowly rises and falls as oxygen, pumped through a tube, helps this infant to breathe. Lying beside it, the body of another baby that didn't make it.
For the doctors here, this is agonizing work. Up to a dozen children are dying each day from flood-related illness, which is unheard of in this small hospital.
"This girl has cholera," says Dr. Nazia. "Their bodies go into shock. We try to rehydrate them with fluid they've lost." One of the four children sharing this bed appears to be going downhill rapidly. Heart monitors are placed on the chest of 5-year-old Ikra (ph), who is severely stunted. Her heart is slowly beating, but her eyes glaze over. Minutes later, she dies. A nurse prepares her tiny body for an Islamic burial, as her sister and grandmother weep outside.
Of the more than 1,500 people who've died since June from Pakistan's climate change-induced catastrophe, more than one-third have been children.
Millions upon millions remain homeless, having lost homes, crops and livestock. Rani is one of them. She wonders if the waters will also take her youngest, 3-year-old Abbas, who is suffering from malaria.
"Death is a better option for us," she says. "We accept it. One should not have to live like this."
Anna Coren, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[04:40:00]
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NEWTON: Now access to abortions here in the United States is becoming increasingly limited after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe versus Wade ruling which guaranteed a woman's right to choose. This past week Arizona became the latest state to effectively outlaw almost all abortions after a judge ruled that a ban from 1901 that can be enforced. Now ahead of that ruling CNN's Kyung Lah got rare access to a clinic that performs abortions in that state and spoke with one of the last women to receive a safe and legal abortion there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[20:45:02]
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the Planned Parenthood clinic in Tucson, Arizona we meet a 23-year-old patient a mother of two boys, nine weeks pregnant with her third.
JANE, ABORTION PATIENT: You can see the head and the little nose.
LAH (voice-over): A baby she will never hold.
JANE: What brought me here is an abortion by choice.
LAH (voice-over): We're calling her Jane to protect her privacy. Her last pregnancy almost killed her.
JANE: Breathing machines and paperwork to sign to decide whether I have to save my life or my son's life.
LAH (voice-over): Two and a half months ago, she and her partner's birth control failed.
JANE: I'm only nine weeks right now.
LAH: Nine weeks and all of this pain?
JANE: All of this pain. What if I do and I keep this baby and I lose my life. And I can't be there for my other two sons.
LAH (voice-over): Jane will be among the last women to receive a safe and legal abortion in Arizona. The Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade through state laws into chaos. Days after we met Jane, an Arizona judge ruled the 1901 law banning abortion with no exception for rape or incest but does consider the life of a mother is the law of the state.
JANE: Oh, it's constant fear. It is constant fear. Like I said, it feels like you're alone. Like you're being given only one option by a man who doesn't know half of the struggles that us women go through. Or the women that want to have babies and can't or the traumas that we've experienced through our life. It is very, very frightening.
[04:45:00]
LAH (voice-over): The doctor in this clinic is Jill Gibson, Planned Parenthood Arizona's medical director.
DR. JILL GIBSON, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, PLANNED PARENTHOOD ARIZONA: To have politicians who have never had any formal medical training. For them to come into that exam room and make these decisions for which they have no basis is completely unacceptable.
LAH (voice-over): We met Gibson at the only fully functioning Planned Parenthood clinic in Tucson. Under the now existing pre-statehood law, if she performs abortions that don't fall under the state's strict guidelines, she faces prosecution and up to five years in prison.
At another clinic in nearby Phoenix.
LAH: What's happening here now?
GIBSON: Nothing.
KEISHA TALBERT, REGISTERED NURSE: This is Keisha calling from Planned Parenthood.
LAH (voice-over): Registered nurse Keisha Talbert now arranges travel to get women out of Phoenix to Tucson.
TALBERT: So, what I want to do is I can get you funding for your procedure.
GIBSON: People are furious, people are infuriated. And so, I'm really hoping that the electorate will be able to tap into that collective rage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, good afternoon. LAH (voice-over): Activist hope that rage exists outside the clinics and will translate at the polls in November, especially among women.
RENA ALDRICH, PLANNED PARENTHOOD VOTES: She's been unwavering really in her support for abortion rights and access.
ALDRICH: I knew that the woman was a Republican.
LAH: A registered Republican.
ALDRICH: Registered Republican.
LAH (voice-over): Who says she will cross party lines to vote for candidates who support abortion rights.
LAH: What does that tell you about Arizona and especially women?
ALDRICH: Even for Republicans, it's not an issue that just Democratic women face. It's an issue that all women face.
LAH (voice-over): Back at the Tucson clinic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do this guide so you can live. Turn to him from your sin.
LAH (voice-over): Anti-abortion activists believe overturning Roe will pay off for conservatives this midterm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a Christian, I believe God is pro-life. Jesus is pro-life and every single life has value. So, I think that it's a very good thing.
LAH (voice-over): But for the woman inside today. It's so much more complicated than politics.
LAH: Would you have wanted this baby?
JANE: If it didn't come with all the complications and everything that it did? Probably, yes. I feel like more women should take a stand. If we speak our more maybe our voices will be heard.
LAH: Planned parenthood of Arizona has filed a notice of appeal as well as an emergency stay calling the 1901 law unacceptable. While this legal wrangling continues abortion services have been halted in Arizona out of concern that women and doctors could face prison time for abortion services.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: TikTok could face a $29 million fine for failing to protect children's privacy in the U.K. Now an investigation by Britain's data privacy regulator found the popular video sharing app handled sensitive information without minors -- from minors without the parents' consent. Now TikTok was notified of a possible fine. The company didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
This just in to our top story. You see it there. Hurricane Ian has made landfall just southwest of the town of La Coloma in the Pinar del Rio Province of Cuba. Now the National Weather Center says they has maximum sustained winds at landfall of 125 miles per hour. And we will have so much more ahead for you at the top of the hour on "EARLY START." More on that storm.
Just ahead growing concerns about the dreaded "R" word, recession as Americans are getting squeezed by rising prices and interest rates.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEWTON: So, recession fears are weighing even more heavily on the U.S. economy. A report on new home sales could give us an idea of just how hesitant Americans are to spend. While the familiar pain of rising gas prices has once again returned. CNN's Brian Todd has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At this gas station outside Washington, motorists are starting to feel that familiar anxiety, after steady drops for more than three straight months, prices at the pump are starting to tick up again.
JANEEN GREEN, MOTORIST IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA: It is frustrating with the gas price increasing, after you -- I got used to the gas prices being a little bit lower and to see that it's going up and hoping that this isn't a trend.
PETER SCHERER, MOTORIST IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA: I'm not delighted, that's for sure, but I did not expect that they would go continue down.
TODD (voice-over): According to AAA, gas prices in the U.S. have risen about a nickel per gallon for regular over the past week.
But it's not just motorists taking a hit, seemingly, no ones being spared from economic pain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at a two-year low and entered a bear market on Monday. Investors seemingly worried about more interest rate hikes from the Fed, which don't really spare anyone, from home buyers to car buyers, to people who hold even a small amount of credit card debt.
MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST, MOODY'S ANALYTICS: Credit card rates are going up. If you want to buy a car or a home, it's now a lot more expensive. It's prohibited for many potential first time home buyers.
TODD (voice-over): The Feds interest rate increases are even inflicting pain overseas, pumping up the value of the dollar at the cost of other currencies. The British pound crashed into a record low against the U.S. dollar on Monday, but some analysts say a recession is not inevitable. ZANDI: Broadly speaking, we are in a pretty good shape. Everyone has a job. Employment is very low. We saved a lot of money during the pandemic with sheltering in place and because of government's support.
TODD (voice-over): But Mark Zandi and other experts acknowledge, not every American experience is the ups and downs of the economy in the same way.
MICHELLE SINGLETARY, PERSONAL FINANCE COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: This is a really tough time for people living on the edge. This is the time to think out of the box. It may not be a time for you to live on your own. It may not be the time for you to buy that new house that you've been pining for. It may not be the time to hold on to that jalopy that you had fix it up until things stabilize in the economy.
TODD: One segment of the U.S. population that is a significant driver of the U.S. economy, America's seniors.
[04:55:00]
They're having a tough time as well which isn't being talked about as much. Many senior citizens are on fixed incomes and analysts say they are really struggling right now with the rising interest rates as well as the climbing prices of gas, food and utilities.
Brian Todd, CNN, McLean, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: All right, so given those inflation fears that Todd was just talking about, that's causing people to actually get a jump on those holiday deals and retailers are listening. Amazon is one of the major companies offering early holiday sales. It announced a second -- a second Primeday like event for members only next month. They're calling it the Prime Early Access Sale. Analysts say consumers are likely to start holiday shopping early. That indeed would be very early.
Now meantime in the NFL the Dallas Cowboys closed out week three with a win against their division rivals the New York Giants. The game was tied at 13 in the fourth quarter when the Cowboys backup quarterback Cooper Rush threw to wide receiver CeeDee Lamb getting the ball to the 1 yard line. They then took the lead with a touchdown pass. You see it there. Again, to Lamb who made a one-handed corner catch. So athletic. The Cowboys defeated the giants 23-16.
Now Halloween, we have to remind you, just a month away. Some fans of the hit Netflix show "Stranger Things" may have already won the award for best holiday decorations.
A family in Illinois recreated this popular scene from the show's latest season in stunningly accurate detail. The floating mannequin appears alongside other monsters from "Stranger Things" around the home. But don't ask how they pulled it off. Apparently, that is still a secret. Netflix even took notice dubbing the family their number one fans. Wonder if they'll ever divulge.
OK, thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Newton. "EARLY START" with Christine Romans is next.
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