Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Asylum Seekers Dismayed of Title 42 Not Lifted; Southwest Airlines Late in Tech Update; Travel Ban in Buffalo Saves People; Cold and Heat Brings Problem to Cities; Alexei Navalny Raise Health Concern Issues. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired December 28, 2022 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. You are watching CNN Newsroom. And I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (through translator): This feels like a bucket of cold water because we don't know what to do now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Uncertainty and anxiety at the border for thousands of asylum seekers after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to keep Title 42 in place for now.

Plus, thousands of new flight cancellations only adding to the frustrations of many travelers left stranded by Southwest Airlines holiday fiasco.

And from one extreme to the next, why warmer weather could actually spell trouble for parts of the U.S.

UNKNOWN: Live from CNN center, this is CNN Newsroom with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. Well, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to keep Title 42 temporarily in place while legal challenges play out, it's preventing the Biden administration from winding down the Trump era border policy after 19 Republican-led states filed a lawsuit saying this would result in a migration catastrophe.

Title 42 allows border agents to turn away migrants in the name of COVID prevention. And with no clarity on when it will be lifted thousands of migrants at America's southern border are wondering when they'll be able to seek asylum. Although disappointed with the outcome the White House says it will comply with the ruling. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

The court is not going to decide until June apparently. And, in the meantime we have to enforce it. But I think it's overdue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Leyla Santiago has more on how migrants are reacting to this decision.

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There was a bit of a disappointing mood in conversations that I had with many of the migrants here. There was one mother who told me she was fleeing violence in Venezuela, and she took months bringing herself as well as her two young children, including a toddler all the way here, said that they had been robbed in Mexico and that her intentions had been to cross into the U.S. legally, but because of Title 42 she was sent back.

So, hearing that that remains in place for many of these migrants, not just this mother, many of the migrants we spoke to kind of echoed that same sentiment because as you can see behind me these are migrants that have nowhere to go at this time.

The city says that they have capacity at shelters. But many of these migrants say that they fear getting on any sort of bus, not knowing exactly where they will end up, not having trust in any sort of individual who may be trying to help them.

So, the city is saying that this is an issue trying to find a place where they can put some of the migrants that have come up that are refusing to go into shelters and staying on the sidewalk here where you will see children and toddlers under blankets sleeping overnight.

The other big thing that the city is also continuing to do is they are moving ahead with their contingency plans. They are working on two vacant schools to serve as potential shelters in the future. Because despite this decision from the Supreme Court that keeps Title 42 in place, they still expect to have a lot of migrants because of what they're seeing across the border.

Seeing a lot of migrants just waiting for their moment to enter into the U.S. whenever that may be. I did speak to one shelter who said to me, an organizer at one of the shelters who said that he too was disappointed with this decision saying that this is something that could extend the bottleneck that they're seeing and put unsustainable pressure on law enforcement on the border.

But for Republicans, this is a win. The Republican states that escalated this legal fight, this is a win for them. Governor Greg Abbott here in Texas was very quick to tweet when this was announced.

Leyla Santiago, CNN, El Paso, Texas.

CHURCH: Airlines have already canceled more than 2,700 flights in the U.S. for the day ahead, and the overwhelming majority are from Southwest Airlines. The weather was initially to blame, but many are now pointing the finger at Southwest's aggressive flight scheduling and outdated infrastructure.

[03:05:05]

The company is apologizing but says it will take several days to get back on track.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB JORDAN, CEO, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: I want everyone who is dealing with the problems we've been facing, whether you haven't been able to get to where you need to go, or you're one of our heroic employees caught up in a massive effort to stabilize the airlines, to know is that we're doing everything we can to return to a normal operation. And please also hear that I'm truly sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says Southwest Airlines will be held accountable and must make sure this does not happen again. Well, many Southwest passengers are not just looking for a way home. They're also looking for their luggage. Unclaimed bags are piling up in several major airports across the U.S.

CNN's Adrienne Broaddus reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The travel nightmare continues at Chicago midway. Normally, this is where people wait for their luggage, but as you can see the luggage is here waiting for people to pick the bags up.

There are a few travelers here looking and searching for their bags. But Southwest has said they will not pull any luggage for travelers who had canceled flights. And there have been more than 3,000 canceled flights on Tuesday alone. The majority of them coming from Southwest Airlines.

We talked to one loyal traveler who always flies Southwest, he says this is the worst in his 20-year history.

RAMI NASHASHIBI, SOUTHWEST PASSENGER: No one knows what to say. Even the poor agents sitting behind counters have quietly admitted that this is absolutely insane. Absolutely. It clearly seems like Southwest has lost their ability to control the situation and there may need to be some type of federal intervention to help them rectify what has caused I'm sure millions of dollars of damage to families that otherwise have been depending on these days, just to get some type of R and R.

BROADDUS: And as you can see, some people are having luck. They've been able to find their bags. However, we were told this line here is only for passengers whose final destination was midway.

Meanwhile, we also heard from another family who drove 14 hours. They drove from Dallas, Texas to Chicago midway to retrieve their luggage. For now, I'm Adrienne Broaddus in Chicago.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And for more on all of this, let's bring in Zach Griff, senior aviation reporter for the travel web site, the Points Guy. He's live for us this hour in Kona, Hawaii.

Thanks so much for joining us.

ZACH GRIFF, SENIOR AVIATION REPORTER, THE POINTS GUY: Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: So why are most airlines back on track after this winter storm while Southwest continues to struggle with stranded passengers and mounting unclaimed luggage? How did the carrier fail so miserably?

GRIFF: Yes. Well, look, the weather across the United States was quite unprecedented in the week before Christmas. And so the airlines had aggressive schedules for this holiday period and many were faced with multiple cancellations and delays because of the weather.

And what we saw is that the airline made those cancellations and then started quickly recovering their networks except for Southwest. Southwest was faced with two major issues as they sought to recover the network. The first is the fact that their planes fly very interesting routings, they don't necessarily go from hubs and back to hubs.

They zigzag across the country. And this has led to flight attendants and crew members being out of place. Additionally, what we're seeing is that the crew scheduling system hasn't been able to keep up with the rate of cancellations that Southwest has had, which has led to this utter chaos meltdown that we've seen over the last few days.

CHURCH: And it has to be said that this does keep happening to Southwest Airlines. So, why haven't they made the necessary updates to their outdated tech systems and also done a better job with staffing and connecting those staff with flights? I mean, it does beg the big question, doesn't it?

GRIFF: Yes, for sure. And you know, it's worth mentioning, Southwest is the largest domestic carrier. They're also an ultra-low-cost carrier so they are, you know, a budget, a discount carrier. And so, investing in technology is something that they've been talking about for a while but it may not necessarily have been a priority for the airlines as much as it's been to keep bears as low as it can.

And this has been project that's been in the works, but it's happening right now at the absolute worst time possible. So, this meltdown right during the busiest travel period for the holidays that we've probably seen ever on record, having a meltdown like this is just unprecedented.

[03:15:08]

CHURCH: And of course, there is a price for that delay on updating, isn't there? Because on Monday, the day after Christmas, Southwest canceled nearly 3,000 flights and delayed about 700, and the situation didn't improve on Tuesday. And now, more than 2,000 flights have been canceled for the hours ahead.

So, how will this likely impact Southwest's future in terms of whether travelers will come back to them as a company? And what about the carrier's executives, will head's role as a consequence, do you think?

GRIFF: It's going to be really interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks. I think the focus right now, especially for passengers who have been stranded and who may have, you know, been trying to get to their families is when will Southwest actually get back to normal?

And it's worth mentioning that right now the airline is not rebooking passengers through at least Friday as they work to stabilize the operation, they're slimming down the number of flights that they operate in order to get their network back in order.

And so, through the new year, if you are traveling with Southwest, odds are that you may be disrupted, and it's worth considering finding a backup. As for what's next for the carrier, that's too early to tell, but it'll really depends on Southwest really recovers here in the next few days.

CHURCH: And how should travelers be compensated, especially those who perhaps never even made it to their family Christmas gathering. So, you can't get that back, can you? How does the airline compensate that loss and all the others who are still stranded in various airports across the country?

GRIFF: It's a question that's been on my mind and on so many people who have been disrupted over the last few days. Southwest has gone out and said that they will reimburse any reasonable expenses that have been incurred as part of the disruption. So, whether that means that you've needed to take a hotel room or a car rental, or maybe you bought a train ticket to your final destination because of Southwest cancellations, the airline has opened up an online form that you can use to submit your expense for reimbursement.

The airline hasn't gone out yet and said what compensation they're going to give, but as you mention, the Department of Transportation has meant -- has reiterated to Southwest the need for them to make customers whole. And it'll be interesting to see what happens next and as customers go out and try to get, their refunds and compensation from the airline.

CHURCH: Yes, that will probably be a nightmare in itself, no doubt.

Zach Griff, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it.

GRIFF: Thank you. CHURCH: Well, a deadly deep freeze with huge banks of snow and so

many stranded people, but some relief is finally arriving in Buffalo, New York.

Plus, the U.N. releases a grim new report on the civilians killed in Russia's war on Ukraine. The toll of 10 months of conflict and what lies ahead. That's next.

[03:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Buffalo is trying to recover from the deadly blizzard that's been paralyzing parts of western New York for days. The massive storm has already killed more than 30 people in Erie County with authorities scrambling to find people who might still be stranded.

And they're getting a hand from a group of snowmobilers. The Hamburg Snowmobile Club has been delivering critical supplies to residents in areas hard to reach ever since Christmas Eve. That's after police asked for help with search and recovery efforts. The snowmobiling group's vice president says they delivered more than 100 meals in four hours on Monday. Members also pulled vehicles out of ditches and got nurses to and from work.

And CNN's Athena Jones has been covering the deep freeze and whiteout and shows us the situation in downtown Buffalo.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. The city of Buffalo is making progress digging out from that monster storm that hit a couple of days ago. You can see the streets of downtown Buffalo are empty. That is because of the driving bans that are in effect all around the city. And those bans are in effect so that workers can clear all of the roads that they possibly can to make sure that the city's emergency operations can come back to functioning at a hundred percent.

At one point during the storm, the sheriff of Erie County said that more than 400 calls for emergency services went unanswered. Officials also want to make sure that the roads are clear so that trucks bringing supplies, you know, food at grocery stores, or supplies for drug stores can get through.

Many of the main roads are now passable less so for the side streets. And I want to show you one of the things that we have observed all over the city of Buffalo. You see here these cars piled under, maybe about a foot of snow. We've seen several cars along the main roads, of course, along the side streets. Some under much more snow than that.

That is important because among, the people who lost their lives in this storm, several were found in vehicles. So that is something that authorities are going to be checking as they work to clear these roads. Local authorities describe a two-day operation to create open lanes.

Listen to the Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz talking about how they're going about clearing these roads.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK POLONCARZ, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, ERIE COUNTY: It is a two-day operation as has been the coordination that's going on between New York State, Erie County, and the city of Buffalo, a two-day operation to create one open lane for every street in the city of Buffalo to fully restore emergency response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And officials said they're going to be able to count on the help of a hundred military police to help enforce these driving bans to make sure that people aren't on the road, unless it's an emergency so that they can make as much progress as possible. Making sure all these roads are cleared.

And another reason it's so important to clear these roads, they say is that the temperatures are going to be warming up over the next couple of days. And with more than four feet of snow having fallen in the -- in these last few days, that's a lot of melt, rapid melt that could take place.

[03:20:03]

And so, officials are concerned about flooding. That is yet one more driver of making sure these streets are cleared.

Athena Jones, CNN, Buffalo, New York.

CHURCH: And those warmer temperatures will be felt across much of the country, but new storms are now brewing out west.

CNN meteorologist Tom Sater explains.

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: From one weather extreme to another as fast as the temperatures drop, they're warming up. High temperatures today, still cold enough for the snow pack to hang around. Chicago, 24. St. Louis, the freezing mark. Buffalo only 24 degrees.

But look at Denver, already a high of 60 today. Rapid City, 57. Overnight they had a windchill of 10 degrees. Snow pack across the U.S. and of course in Canada, still very high and getting heavier in the mountains from British Columbia down to the central Rockies.

A lot of snow in the upper Midwest. Winnipeg picked up 200 centimeters of snow. That's the earliest they picked up that much snow. And then you get into Ontario. But of course, travel bans still in place in and around Buffalo. The governor of New York has opened up the freeways, thank goodness. But the only advisory, and it is just an advisory, is Watertown and the surrounding counties.

The warmup begins, but with problems. We're not going to see temperatures warm up and refreeze. They get up above freezing in Buffalo and stay that way. But however, rain comes in Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. And with this massive warmup coming, of course, the flood problems, we could see with ice jamming the drainage areas, we could see the water main breaks, and that could be a big problem.

But above average, how about much above average for the east staggering. Out to the west however, the first in a series of storms have moved in, heavy mountain snow, heavy coastal rain, about 100,000 lost power in coastal areas of Oregon because trees are down and how winds are so high.

But this atmospheric river is like a fire hose. Again, it's not one system, it's a series of them. This is a multi-day event that we'll see this atmospheric river plow into the area. With all the fires we've had out west burn scars could really create some debris flows, but it's going to be flash flooding. As heavy rain already in San Francisco, is sliding down toward L.A. all the way to the Mexican border.

But it's the high mountain snowfall from the front range of the Rockies where the advisories and already the warnings are in place. Excessive rainfall from coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest all the way down into Southern California.

So, big travel problems here, flash flooding is going to be a big concern. And when you look at the New Year's Day in the first week of the 2023 above average precipitation, which is good news, although it comes with the flip side, and even though temperatures are warmer in the east, it's rain for most locations, which is good news for everyone.

Back to you.

CHURCH: In central China state media reports one person has been killed in a major car pileup involving more than 200 vehicles. It happened on a bridge in the city of Zhengzhou. Extremely foggy conditions are being blamed for the crash. Many of those injured were reportedly trapped in their vehicles and had to be rescued by a local fire department.

In Ukraine, Russian shelling hit a hospital maternity ward in the southern city of Kherson on Tuesday. That is according to an aide to Ukraine's president. They say doctors managed to complete a caesarean section just before the attack, and quote, "miraculously, no one was injured." Shelling also reportedly hit infrastructure in other parts of the Kherson region causing civilian casualties.

And this comes as the U.N. Human Rights Office says at least 6,800 civilians have been killed since Russia's invasion began. The office says it believes the actual figures are considerably higher.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's prime minister says power outages are decreasing as critical infrastructure repairs are streamlined, but the country's energy minister says the situation remains really difficult.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the country is preparing for the months ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): We continue to prepare our security and defense forces for the next year. This must be a decisive year. We understand the risks that there are in the winter. We understand what we have to do in the spring, and hence we understand what results the security and defense sector has to achieve as a whole.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The Kremlin appears to be making good on threats to ban oil exports to countries that impose price caps on Russian oil and petroleum products. Russia says President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning the exports on Tuesday. It's a move seen as largely symbolic countries that implemented a $60 per barrel cap on Russian crude have largely already banned the import of Russian oil due to invasion of Ukraine.

[03:24:56]

The prize cap policy is aimed at Moscow's remaining oil buyers and companies that provide shipping insurance and other services.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he's being injected with an unknown drug while being held in a high security prison. The prominent Putin critic made the claim in a series of tweets on Monday, he says it's part of efforts to withhold medical information from him as he battles worsening back pain.

And joining us now with more on this story is Clare Sebastian. Good morning to you, Clare. So, what more are you learning about Alexei Navalny's claims, and of course conditions that he's dealing with right now in prison?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rosemary, he's basically accusing the Russian authorities of making his health problems worse and withholding problematic treatment as a way to try to hurt him to chip away at him physically and mentally. In a series of tweets, as you noted here, he outlines exactly how this is done.

Take a look at this one. He says, see how the system works when you're not allowed to beat up a person, but your leadership ordered you to hurt them badly. For example, he says, I have a problem with my spine. It's clear what one has to do to make the problem worse. Keep me as a immobile as much as possible.

This is a reference to the fact that we know that the conditions that he's faced in his penal colony, certainly the one as he's been reporting it, have been getting increasingly worse. In June, he was moved to a high security facility. In November, he reported being put in -- put in a cell type room, a sort of solitary confinement of sorts that he's only allowed to sit on a stool, for 16 hours a day.

And he says, this is making his back problems much worse. He tried to get proper medical treatment. He filed a request for a doctor, he says it took a month and a half for one to arrive. Then they didn't tell him anything about his diagnosis. After that, they started injecting him with what he says was an unknown sub -- substance. Gave him a vague response to his questions about what it was saying it was B vitamins.

It didn't help him, and he then had to file a request through his lawyers for his medical records, which turned up always illegible. He continues to do this to fight for his rights in prison through his lawyers, through the courts.

And he also continues, Rosemary, to do exactly what the Russian government does not want him to do. And that is to openly criticize his treatment, but also the war in Ukraine.

And it should be noted that his situation right now, he was sentenced to another nine years in prison in March, the month the war started. This war has gone hand in hand with an intensifying crackdown on free speech and descent inside of Russia.

CHURCH: All right, our thanks to Clare Sebastian bringing us up to date on that story.

And still to come, fresh details in the January 6th committee's investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack. What we're learning from newly released Witness interview transcripts.

Back in just a moment.

[03:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: President Biden says the White House will comply with a Supreme Court ruling to keep Title 42 in place for now. The Trump era restriction allows border patrol agents to immediately turn back migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border to protect against COVID. The court plans to take up the matter in February, but a decision may not come until June.

The Biden administration wants to end the program and has been preparing for a surge of migrants seeking asylum.

A new batch of witness transcripts reveals more details about the January 6th committee's insurrection investigation.

Jessica Schneider has the story.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We are now seeing the intricate details of all four times that Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the committee the last time in June, 2022, really the most illuminating. Because by that point she left her Trump world attorney for a neutral counsel who told the committee that she really needed to correct some of her previous testimony to clear up the record about what she had previously said. And the details that she gave are indeed damaging.

So first off, she told the committee that she saw Mark Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace about a dozen times, which she says amounted to about once or twice a week between December, 2020 and January, 2021. And that at least twice she saw Meadows burning documents after meetings with the Republican Congressman Scott Perry, who was ultimately subpoenaed by the committee but never complied.

In addition to that, Hutchinson also told the committee how discussions about some QAnon conspiracy theories really permeated the White House after the election. She said that Mark Meadows brought it up. Also, Congressman -- Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She made mention of this far-right wing political movement that, of course has those outlandish conspiracy theories.

And then Cassidy Hutchinson said that she had this exchange with White House trade advisor Peter Navarro. And at one point, I had sarcastically said, is this from your QAnon friends, Peter, because Peter would talk to me frequently about his QAnon friends. And he said, have you looked into it yet, Cass? I think they pointed out a lot of good ideas. You really need to read this, make sure the chief sees it. And then when she was asked by vice chair Liz Cheney if Navarro was being sarcastic, Hutchinson said, I did not take it as sarcasm.

So, in addition to that, we're also getting new details from Deputy White House Press Secretary, Judd Deere. He told the committee that he heard gossip the week after the 2020 election from some of his colleagues at the White House. That Trump, in fact, was considering conceding and even considering inviting the Bidens to the White House.

Judd Deere told the committee here that he was looped in on this, on these conversations because he is the one who would've been arranging the press access for any sort of visit for the Bidens. So, obviously neither of those things happened. Of course, instead, Trump refused to concede and held onto those claims of a stolen election.

Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

CHURCH: A man convicted in the plot to kidnap Michigan's governor has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. A federal judge handed down the sentence to Adam Fox on Tuesday. A jury convicted him and an accomplice in August of kidnapping, conspiracy, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Prosecutors said Fox was the leader of the 2020 plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her summer home. They had asked for Fox to be sentenced to the maximum of life in prison. Fox declined to speak on his own behalf during the sentencing hearing.

[03:34:57]

As Beijing continues to peel away layers of COVID restrictions, other countries are taking precautions to make sure incoming travelers are not bringing the virus with them. All travelers from China will be tested for the virus upon entering Japan and India and will have to quarantine if they test positive.

India has expanded the restriction beyond just mainland China, also requiring anyone coming from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, or Thailand to undergo testing. Italian officials are also testing every traveler from China who comes through the Milan Malpensa International Airport.

Well, the change in China's restrictions also means some Chinese citizens will finally be able to return home after years away due to the pandemic.

CNN's Selina Wang has more.

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: China is finally dropping quarantine and loosening its borders. Many people here are rejoicing after years of not being able to leave this country. According to Chinese travel booking web site, Trip.com, searches for popular destinations jumped 10 times within half an hour of the announcement.

This news also means that many Chinese nationals living abroad can finally go home. It is a bittersweet victory after so much sacrifice.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WANG: The world's harshest quarantine is no more. As COVID sweeps through China, the country is scrapping quarantines for inbound travelers from January 8th and promising to gradually restart outbound tourism.

Since the start of the pandemic, China has severely limited who can go in and out of the country. Drastically cutting the number of flights and forcing all incoming arrivals into government facilities. I went through multiple quarantines in China this year, lasting as long as 21 days. There's no choice in where you go or what room you get.

Once the doors close, you can only open them for COVID tests and food pickups. Workers spray disinfectant in the hallways every few hours. Food delivery is not allowed, but breakfast, lunch, and dinner are part of quarantine fees. All of that is now soon going away. It's a huge relief for Chinese nationals living overseas like this woman in New York City.

UNKNOWN: I really want to go back to my home immediately. And right now, I'm very emotional. I'm always almost like in tears right now.

WANG: When's the last time you went home to China?

UNKNOWN: Four years before. I lost several of my family members during the pandemic. I lost my beloved golden retriever. I feel like I missed everything.

WANG: How is your family doing now in China.

UNKNOWN: Right now, almost everyone got co COVID. And they are suffering. Once my grandpa give me a video call, I cried so badly. At that moment I even don't know if I will get chance to seek him. Just got COVID and I hope he will -- he will be OK.

WANG: On Chinese social media people have been sharing everything they've lost during three years of border controls while they were stuck out of their home country. One writes, I received the bad news of my father's unexpected death while I was in a quarantine hotel, but I couldn't go back to see him for the last time.

Another writes, because of the pandemic I didn't even know that my grandma passed away and I heard it from my mother a month later.

This new change finally ends China's ban on non-essential travel for Chinese citizens.

"I feel like the pandemic is finally over. The travel plans I made three years ago may finally become a reality," she says. It's exciting news for potential travelers, but at home, the country is struggling to grapple with an explosion in COVID cases.

UNKNOWN: The hospital is just overwhelmed from top to bottom. There was no preparation like nobody knew. You know, there was no stockpiling of medications.

WANG: This viral video in the southern city of Guangzhou shows a man kneeling on the ground at a fever clinic, breaking down and begging the nurse to let him see the doctor after waiting for hours. Fever and cold medicine are nearly impossible to get at drugstores across the country. Antivirals are also extremely hard to get, but in a major move Beijing has announced it's going to start distributing Paxlovid to community health centers in the coming days.

So, there's chaos and confusion, but with zero COVID in the past, finally, there's light at the end of the tunnel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WANG: But now as China is finally loosening its borders, some countries like Japan and India are increasing restrictions for travelers from China. They're worried about the spike in cases here. Japan's prime minister said travelers from China will be tested for COVID on arrival. Those who test positive will have to quarantine for seven days.

Japan has also restricted plans to increase flights to and from China. India has put in place similar COVID testing guidelines.

[03:39:58]

Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: CNN's Fred Pleitgen has been covering Russia's invasion since even before it began, and not just from Ukraine, He's also reported from inside Russia and Belarus. As the conflict nears its second calendar year he looks back on his experiences. And a warning to our viewers this report contains disturbing images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We had a rare opportunity to get into Belarus, and this was a few days before the invasion for joint exercises between the Russian military and the Belarusian military.

And we were filming this, we were filming the exercise. There was a lot of tanks, there were a lot of helicopters in this exercise. And then all of a sudden, Lukashenko showed up, the Belarusian strong man. And I immediately confronted him.

The United States has said that there would be severe consequences for Belarus if an attack on Ukraine were launched from Belarusian territory by yourself or the Russian army. Do you still support, Russia in its course towards Ukraine?

ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO, PRESIDENT OF BELARUS (through translator): Do you still believe we're going to attack Ukraine from here, or have you already overcome this mental block?

PLEITGEN: He, you know, kept ranting at me and at some point, he just went away and went into his helicopter and flew off, and a few days later the invasion then did begin. One of the things that really stood out to me was that we were doing a live shot on our morning show. And while I was doing that live shot, the Russians launched multiple rocket launching systems towards Ukraine.

And you could see them in our live shot. You could hear them obviously, in our live shot, as well. Here, there's more rockets that's being fired right now. If we look in the sky, we can see it there. If we pan up there's another salvo being fired right now.

[03:44:55]

So, you can see in this area the Russians firing artillery rockets towards Ukraine. And at the same time, we've also seen them move in heavy, heavy armor through the road that I just pointed to before. We saw Howitzers going down that road just a couple of minutes ago.

That was where you could really see that the war had started in full force. And we have to keep in mind that this is really the time that full on war has come back to Europe, which is quite a scary thing. But then of again, also of course a very important thing to document, as well.

As Russian forces retreat from the area north of Kyiv in their wake scenes of utter destruction, whole blocks of houses flattened. Ukrainian authorities saying they believe dead bodies are still lying underneath.

But here the dead also lay in the open. Ukrainian national police showed us this mass grave in Bucha, saying they believed up to 150 civilians might be buried here, but no one knows the exact number. People killed while the Russian army occupied this town.

We were going around Bucha and obviously, you know, we found the mass grave to be -- to be an awful sight, but it really hadn't dawned on me how important all of this was going to be. And so, we were -- we were driving around the area. There was no cell phone connection, so we couldn't really communicate with our guys at headquarters.

And then we got back into -- into the cell phone connection area. And I got an e-mail that said there are reports of a mass grave in Bucha. And I wrote back, we just came back from that mass grave. And with that, you know, it just became this gigantic international story. And then the next couple of days we went back to Bucha, pretty much every day and into the surrounding areas as well.

And it was -- it was really much worse than almost anything I've ever seen. We -- everywhere we went there were dead bodies. There's not many things, I think, in the world that have truly moved me and shaken me, but I do remember that a couple of weeks later after I got back home and I was talking about, about what had happened in Bucha.

It was something that definitely where I did feel very emotional at that point, just remembering that the things that we saw and the things that we witnessed, it was definitely devastating to have witnessed all that. But at the same time, of course, very important to sort of shine the light on it and to document all of that for the wider public.

And another thing that really stood out in the reporting was also the way that the Russians dealt with their own troops. We also got the chance to go to Chernobyl. We were the first team to go to Chernobyl.

The Russians imprisoned the security staff inside the plant's own bomb shelter, the interior minister told us, no natural light, no fresh air, no communications. So, the Russians kept 169 Ukrainians prisoner here the entire time they held this place. And then when the Russians left, they looted and ransacked the place.

And we went to the edge of the Red Forest. And we obviously didn't go into the actual contaminated area, but we went to the edge of the Red Forest and we found a Russian meal ration there, one of those military meal rations. And we held the meter to it and it maxed out, the meter itself maxed out. And it showed that the Russian forces that were there must have faced radioactive contamination simply because their superiors were so negligent or just didn't care about the safety of their own troops.

So that was definitely something that also stood out. And then also, of course, the utter destruction, the scale of the destruction that we saw around the Kyiv area and all the way up to -- up to the north, to the Belarusian border was insane. I mean, it was just, there were some pretty tough battles that had been fought there.

Just to give you an idea about the scale of the destruction. You have houses like these that were completely destroyed, but if we look over here, you can see that even large residential buildings have been flattened. This entire building was flattened. It was connected with this one before, but now there's absolutely nothing left of it.

Covering this story has been extremely dangerous. It's been extremely important to be in a lot of these places, and I think in many ways it's been life changing for a lot of the reporters who were there. So, we're taking cover here because we just had some incoming

artillery fire. We're going to wait and hope that there's not any hits anywhere close to us.

I think 2022 will be remembered as being the year that full on war has come back to Europe. Something that many people thought would be impossible after the horrors of World War II, but unfortunately it turns out that there are still some who believe that war is the answer.

[03:50:09]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Fred Pleitgen there.

Well, new questions around the treatment of an Iranian football star's family. Just ahead, a closer look at why Ali Daei's wife and daughter were forced off a commercial flight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Iranian football legend Ali Daei says he's looking for answers as to why his wife and daughter were pulled off a flight that was originally bound for Dubai on Monday. Daei has been a vocal supporter of the ongoing anti-government protest in Iran.

CNN's Nada Bashir has the latest.

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Well, he is one of Iran's most legendary soccer stars, but he's also become a notable critic of the Iranian regime. Now Ali Daie says a Dubai bound flight carrying his wife and daughter was rerouted and forced to land on Kish Island in the Persian Gulf where the pair were removed from the flight by authorities.

[03:55:02]

Now, officials have yet to offer a direct explanation as to why the soccer star's family was removed. But in a now retracted article, Iran state run news agency, IRNA reported that Daie's wife and daughter were barred from traveling as they hadn't informed authorities of their decision to leave the country in advance despite being ordered to do so.

Meanwhile, Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency said Daie's wife had been barred from leaving the country by court order over her alleged participation in what they've described as riots. Now, the pair are not believed to have been arrested, and in an interview with Iranian media, Daie said he is in the process of arranging for their return to Tehran.

But he also said that he was not aware of any travel restrictions placed on his wife or daughter. Now this of course comes amid ongoing anti-regime protests in the country, which have been met by violence and repression by the regime's security forces. The footballing legend himself has been a vocal supporter of the

protest movement, writing in a post on Instagram in September, that instead of repression, violence and arresting the Iranian people, the regime should solve their problem.

And in November, Daie said he had rejected an official invitation to the Qatar World Cup in a show of solidarity with Iranian protestors at home. But now there are fears that Daie and his family may become the latest in a string of notable Iranian figures who have faced repression at the hands of the regime for showing solidarity with protestors in Iran.

nada Bashir, CNN, London.

CHURCH: And thanks for spending part of your day with me. I'm Rosemary Church. CNN Newsroom continues with Bianca Nobilo, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:00:00]