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Sudan's Fragile Ceasefire Expired, Diplomatic Personnel Forces to Evacuate; Joe Biden Poses to Announce his Re-Election Bid despite Survey Results; G7 Grain Deal with Russia in Jeopardy; Mississippi expanding state control over policing in Jackson; Florida Governor Meets PM Fumio Kishida in Japan; Iranian Regime Said to be Going Beyond Borders; Some Blue Check Marks Turn Visible Again After Last Week's Purge. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired April 24, 2023 - 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 here in the United States and around the world. You are watching "CNN Newsroom", and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, we are learning more about the mission to evacuate U.S. diplomatic personnel from Sudan and the conditions though still their face amid the fighting between rival military groups.

U.S. President Joe Biden is poised to announce his bid for reelection. We'll look at the latest polling on whether Americans say he should run again.

And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has not announced his plans to run yet, but he's getting a lot of attention with a series of overseas trips this week. We're live in Jerusalem with a preview of one stop.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Good to have you with us. Well, a fragile ceasefire between Sudan's warring factions has ended and now the armed conflict is in its 10th day with no end in sight. The fighting has ravaged many parts of the country, turning buildings into child ruins.

A doctor's union says most hospitals in and around the capital are now closed. As the conflict grinds on, a growing number of countries have been trying to get their citizens out. In the past day, they have evacuated more than 1000 people of various nationalities. Spain airlifted about 100 of them in a military plane as you can see in these images.

Over the weekend, the U.S. also evacuated dozens of embassy workers and their families. And now, it's trying to help private citizens get out as well. The evacuation of U.S. government personnel from Sudan was a carefully planned operation conducted swiftly and ultimately safely.

CNN's Kylie Atwood has more details on how it all played out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This was a major evacuation in the State Department obviously has evacuation plans for its embassies around the world. But what it did in recent days with its colleagues at the Pentagon was to actually get the pieces in place to carry out that evacuation. And that was carried out on Saturday night after President Biden and the Secretary of State gave approval for that operation, the State Department releasing a photo of the Secretary of State with his closest colleagues, his top State Department officials monitoring the situation on Saturday night.

And of course, this was a very fast operation. These military personnel on these aircraft, flying in about 100 special forces on the ground in Sudan for less than an hour as they loaded up U.S. diplomats, their family members, some diplomats from other countries, a total of just under 100 people to get out of the country.

They then flew out to Ethiopia. And, of course, one question remaining is the status of the U.S. embassy in Khartoum. According to the Secretary of State, that remains temporarily suspended right now, effectively closed until the U.S. government can get personnel back in the country. But they can't run that embassy without U.S. government personnel there.

And when it comes to U.S. citizens, who we're still in Sudan, we know that hundreds of them have been in touch with the State Department. A top State Department official said on Saturday night that they don't expect that there is going to be a widespread evacuation plan for by the government for those citizens.

And what they are telling citizens is that they do want to be in touch with them, provide as much support as they can. They are providing them with some details about convoys over land routes out of the country that are being provided by other countries. But they're telling those citizens at this time, if they want to take part in those convoys, to do so at their own risk.

Kylie Atwood, CNN, the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And CNN's Stephanie Busari joins us now with more. So Stephanie, what is the latest on evacuation efforts and, of course, the fighting across Sudan?

STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN AFRICA SENIOR EDITOR: Good Morning, Rosemary. We're entering the 10th day of this crisis in Sudan and coming out of a 72-hour ceasefire that was very fragile, indeed.

Now, fighting has slowed down this morning. And it's only been spotted -- seen in pockets of the capital, particularly near the airport and in areas where the military are set -- concentrated. [03:04:58]

Phone lines are down, currently in the country. And there's actually internet connectivity, so as the evacuation efforts go, -- go ahead, many countries, including France and Spain, have managed to get their citizens out and other countries are attempting to get their citizens out, too.

And Sudanese are struggling. But as electricity and power are out currently, but returning in some parts of the capital. And hospitals are also affected and many people struggling to get medical treatment, Rosemary.

CHURCH: And, Stephanie, what will likely happen to those foreign citizens who haven't yet been evacuated out of Sudan?

BUSARI: Yes, so the -- many people are appealing to the government. Some Nigerians who are stranded there, for example, appealing to their governments to say please help us to get out. And that -- it's a difficult situation. Many people can't -- they can't get in or get out. And some of the Sudanese themselves are asking who is going to come and save us. And they are feeling abandoned. And some are feeling increasingly angry that they are -- they are not getting the help and support, something if you can get planes into country, why can't medical supplies come into the country and help us to get treated and to get hospitals going, Rosemary.

CHURCH: Alright. Stephanie Busari, joining us live from Lagos, and many thanks.

Will the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election be deja vu all over again? Well, that's certainly shaping up that way.

President Joe Biden expected to announce he will run for a second term soon, perhaps this Tuesday. Donald Trump has already announced on the Republican side. And he's casting a large shadow over other GOP hopefuls. CNN has learned President Biden is planning to name Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser, to oversee his reelection campaign. She is the granddaughter of the late labor organizer Cesar Chavez.

But enthusiasm for a second Biden run seems to be lacking. A recent poll shows 52 percent of Democratic voters say they don't want to see Biden run again.

CNN White House reporter Kevin Liptak has more on Mr. Biden's expected re-election announcement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: We do know he's up at Camp David this weekend. He's talking to his team, making some of these final decisions on staffing operations, that sort of thing. If he does make this announcement, I think it does two things. One, kind of the nuts and bolts of it, it unlocks this new fundraising potential for the president. And that's no small thing. This could be potentially a $2 billion campaign. And we do also expect the president to meet with some of his biggest donors at the end of this week.

But the other thing that this would do is sort of put to rest this ongoing speculation about whether or not he would run. And the president has been saying, you know, for almost two years that he does intend to run. He said, as recently as a week ago that he planned to run, but that hasn't necessarily put all of those doubts to rest.

And you know the main issue with his -- with President Biden is his age. That is the reason why a lot of people around this country, a lot of even Democrats have wondered whether he would go for a second term. If President Biden does run for reelection, he will be asking Americans to get behind the idea of a president serving well into their 80's. That is contributing to what you see in this poll today. And what you've seen in polls recently, is this lack of enthusiasm, really, for a second Biden term.

This NBC poll today said that 70 percent of Americans think that Biden should not run for office that include 51 percent of Democrats. And that is in line with a lot of other polls. Now we should say that poll also included a majority of Americans who said that President Trump should also not run for president again. So really, not a lot of it -- a lot of enthusiasm for a rematch between these two men, but we will see how this plays out as this week unfolds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Let's discuss this and more with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, he's also a senior editor at "The Atlantic." Good to have you with us.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey, Rosemary. Good to be here.

CHURCH: So, President Joe Biden is expected to announce his 2024 reelection campaign Tuesday. But the latest AP-NORC poll shows 52 percent of Democrats don't want him to run again. How will the party deal with that level of rejection?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, you know, look, I think the view in the White House is that, in this intensely polarized era when many political scientists and political analysts believe that voters are motivated more by their dislike of the other party than their affection for their own party that ultimately those numbers will not prove consequential.

[03:09:55]

You know that if Joe Biden is, in fact, the Democratic nominee the vote -- the voters in the Democratic coalition who have come out in large numbers to oppose the Trump-era GOP in 2018, 2020 and 22 will fall in line. That is, I think, very clearly the dominant view in the White House and the inner Biden circle.

There are other Democrats who are worried, though, about the level of enthusiasm that you will see for Biden as the nominee, and this strategy of essentially hoping for the other side, to motivate your voters.

CHURCH: Right. And it's worth noting that that same poll also found 44 percent of Republican voters don't want former president Donald Trump to run again, either. But in other polls, Trump is way ahead of potential rival Ron DeSantis as the Florida governor prepares to throw his hat in the ring and also set off on a world tour that includes Israel. So how do you reconcile those different poll results and what would a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 look like as opposed to a Biden- DeSantis matchup?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah. Well, first in terms of the Republican policy, they really are not incompatible. I mean, 44 percent of Republicans don't want Donald Trump to run. And almost all of the other 56 percent of him are now saying they do want him to be the nominee. I mean, that's kind of the challenge that the rest of the party -- you know, the rest of the candidates face. I mean, there is a big block that doesn't want Trump to be the nominee again. But he remains intensely popular among the non-college side of the Republican Party. And the thing that I think is most ominous, or a DeSantis or Mike Pence, or Tim Scott, is how similar Trump's coalition looks in 2024 to the winning coalition that he had in the Republican Primary in 2016.

And once again, he's winning about half of voters without a college education, and about only a third or less of those with a college degree. That's probably enough to win if he can sustain that.

A Trump-Biden rematch -- first of all, that was much more common in the 19th Century from 1800's and 1900's. I think we had five cases where the two -- the same two candidates ran against each other and consecutive races. We've only had it once since with Eisenhower leading Adlai Stevenson twice in the 1950's in the U.S., I think most people on both sides suspect that if it's Trump and Biden that it would be very much a game of inches, that not that much would change from 2020, except that I think Democrats are confident that after the events of January 6th and the potential that Trump will be facing multiple criminal indictments that his ceiling would probably be just a little lower than it was last time, and that he would have a very uphill climb.

DeSantis could have similar problems and that he's moved so far to the right and social issues can alienate a lot of the same white-collar suburban voters who have turned away from the GOP under Trump. But there's more unpredictability and uncertainty if he's the nominee.

CHURCH: Yeah, of course. Meantime, the GOP appears ready to risk economic disaster if President Biden refuses to negotiate major spending cuts in exchange for Republicans agreeing to raise the debt limit to avoid default on the federal debt as that deadline looms.

So how close to the brink might this get and how dangerous is this GOP strategy?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, in 2011, Barack Obama did with Joe Biden very actively involved, did agree to negotiate with Republicans over the budget, as part of the discussion about how to raise the debt ceiling. And that went up to the very last weekend before they cobble together a scale back deal that avoided default, but left Obama and Biden convinced, that this was not something they ever wanted to do again. And in fact, in 2013 and 2014, when Republicans came back and wanted to tie budget cuts and the debt ceiling, Obama simply refused to negotiate with him. That's the posture that Biden has maintained today.

If you compare where Republicans are to where they were in 2011, or even 2013, the majority is smaller. There are more extreme conservatives in that majority than they were then. And the Speaker Kevin McCarthy is even weaker than John Boehner was -- you know, in 2011 and 2013. So the prospect of a default by miscalculation, if nothing else, certainly seems greater than it was then, the risk or the odds of that.

CHURCH: Hopefully, they understand the ramifications here. It is terrifying. Ron Brownstein, many thanks. Yeah. I appreciate your analysis.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Rosemary.

CHURCH: Thank you.

Former U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence says his legal team has worked out a date to give testimony before the grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election. Pence revealed the detail in an interview released Sunday, but said he could not reveal a specific date or elaborate further.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think I'm limited about what I can say about the proceedings of the grand jury or the decision of the judge, but people can be confident that will -- will obey the law, will comply with the law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[03:15:06]

CHURCH: Pence did not say whether he's made a decision about running for president next year. But said if he does, he won't engage in personal attacks on his opponents.

It's the food many nations rely upon. And now, it's a critical supply that could be cut off again. We'll explain why the G7 and Russia are arguing over Ukrainian grain.

And Ukraine says drones are trying to destroy its air defenses. We'll have details on those strikes. Plus a relentless Russian assault, along the front lines. Back with that in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Another day of relentless Russian shelling and missiles across eastern Ukraine left homes and other buildings damaged from Kharkiv in the north to Odessa in the south. The darkness of night couldn't hide the extensive damage the barrage caused.

[03:20:00]

Ukraine says the attacks span the entire eastern front line, but that its forces did not give up any ground. The Ukrainian military also says Iranian-made drones have been trying to attack its air defenses around Odessa, which you see here, a spokesperson says it's evident Russia has replenished its drone supply.

The G7 is calling for the extension and full implementation of the Black Sea Grain initiative. But Russia is saying maybe not. A top Russian official says Moscow will terminate the agreement to allow Ukrainian grain to transit the Black Sea, if the G7 bans its exports to Russia. But the coalition of seven major countries and the E.U says Russia is trying to weaponize food meant for nations most in need. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to discuss the grain deal with the U.N. Secretary General on his visit to New York this week.

And CNN's Claire Sebastian is covering all these developments for us. She joins us now live from London. Good morning to you, Claire. So what more are you learning about the G7 grain deal and Russia's reaction?

CLAIRE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Rosemary. Even before former President Medvedev's threat to end it, if the G7 follows through with something it's considering, which is de facto banning all exports to Russia, this deal was on shaky ground. The background is that when it was first agreed last July, it was essentially one of two agreements. The second was a memorandum of understanding, between Russia and the United Nations, to essentially allow the flow of Russian food and fertilizer onto the markets.

Now, Russia has a list of demands to make that happen, including lifting a large swath of sanctions, things like reconnecting Russia's state agricultural bank to swift and things like that. They are saying that is not happened yet, the U.N in a recent briefing saying that they are working on it, but they essentially don't have the power to lift those sanctions. So they are working with the parties that do. So Russia's seizing on this now. It's timing also interesting, because we have seen in the past week or so that several European countries have blocked the entry of Ukrainian grain into their countries, because of an access on the markets undercutting local suppliers.

Poland, of course, has now reinstated those imports of Ukrainian grain. But this is a moment when the market was already looking pretty fragile and Russia now threatening to end that deal.

As you say, Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, he has now arrived in New York, set to discuss this. This, of course, has a huge amount at stake for the global food markets, Rosemary.

CHURCH: And, Claire, you've been investigating the mysterious fleet of oil tankers that help Moscow continue to export its oil under sanctions. What did you find? SEBASTIAN: Yes. I mean, we've just been talking about how Russia's war

is upended global food markets. It is also upended global energy markets. We know now that some of the most stringent sanctions that the West has imposed on Russia were on energy.

Europe has banned most imports of Russian oil and refined products by sea. That means that Asia is picking up most of the slack. While at the same time, the G7 price cap allows Russian oil to keep flowing, as long as it's sold under the cap.

All of this means that the way Russian oil is being transported has changed fundamentally. And that is leading to potential consequences for the transparency of those supply chains, and potentially also for the environment. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): This calm blue sea of southern Greece, now a new hub for Russia's oil trade. Taken in mid-March, this satellite image shows oil tankers arranged in pairs. Experts say most of them involved in a cargo transfer.

Data shows transactions like these have surged in recent months. This year, on average five times more per month, dotting the picturesque waters near Greece's Kalamata Port compared to 2021, according to cargo tracking firm Kpler.

MATTHEW WRIGHT, SENIOR FREIGHT ANALYST, KPLER: It's sort of become a ship-to-ship hub where smaller vessels come in from Russian ports. They transfer the cargoes onto larger vessels, and then those larger vessels will -- will head off through to Asia.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Matthew Wright says the rise in ship-to-ship transfers is part of a big shift in shipping patterns. A European Union ban on most seaborne Russian crude oil and refined products means Russian exports now travel much longer distances to reach Asian customers.

And he says while smaller vessels are better for docking at Russian ports. They're not ideal for long-haul voyages.

WRIGHT: You can see the fact that it has loaded HSFO, which is fuel oil.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Those sanctions have also given rise to what Wright calls the great fleet, tankers sold since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and his data shows exclusively now transporting Russian oil or refined products, as some western ship has started to avoid it.

[03:25:00]

(on-camera): Were using tracking data and corroborating with experts, we were able to pinpoint one of those great fleet ships in this image. Here it is.

That larger vessel and we traced this apparent transaction back in time. The smaller vessel docking in St. Petersburg in late February, where, according to Kpler, it picked up a cargo of fuel oil, then we tracked it all around Western Europe and back here to the Mediterranean, the Greek Coast. At which point, Kpler data shows, it unloaded its cargo onto that larger, gray tank ship.

(voice-over): That ship then transited the Suez Canal apparently en route to Asia.

WRIGHT: It's not illegal what they're doing. It's essentially a story of the transfer of ownership.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Oil tanker sales have surged in the past year. And among them, and among them, Kpler says, that same tanker, here it is again, tracked to the Russian ports of Novorossiysk in December. Think tank vessels value estimates 105 tankers of a similar size changed hands in 2022, double the volume of the previous year. It also says around a third of sales this year, what newly formed companies are undisclosed buyers.

At the International Maritime Organization in London, that shift in ownership, reinforcing safety concerns around ship-to-ship transfers.

FREDERICK KENNY, INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION: We're unable to determine the level of compliance with the IMO safety and environmental protection regime. The worst case scenario would be a casualty where a transfer line breaks and you have a major spill or you have an explosion and fire, myriad things that can go wrong in the ship-to-ship transfer.

SEBASTIAN (voice-over): It's a situation that's not going away, as Russia's war redraws the global energy map, creating a new logistics system increasingly controlled by lesser known players and loaded with potential risks.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEBASTIAN: Rosemary, this gray activity as expert pointed out is not necessarily illegal. The G7 price cap, as I said, allows Russian oil and refined products to keep flowing. The worry is that if the oil price goes up, that means it's harder and harder to comply with the G7 price cap. And then, we could see the gravely become more and more important and ship-to-ship transfers as they have been in the past with sanctions on Iran and Venezuela become part of a sanctions evasion playbook. As of yet, experts telling us, they're not seeing a lot of so-called dark activity out there.

CHURCH: Alright. Our thanks for that investigation, Claire Sebastian in London.

Well, the NAACP is filing suit after Mississippi's governor signs legislation expanding state control over policing in the city of Jackson. We'll explain why. That's next.

Plus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will meet Florida's governor when he travels to Israel. What this could mean for both sides. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[03:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: New legislation signed by Mississippi's governor is expanding the state's law enforcement reach in Jackson and making major changes to its judicial system. The NAACP calls the action a state takeover of the capital city and has filed a lawsuit.

CNN's Isabel Rosales has details.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the heart of this controversy, questions about racial justice and representation, the legislators who introduced these laws as bills, represent areas outside of Jackson. The state legislature is primarily Republican and white. But the city of Jackson is primarily Democratic and over 80 percent black.

Now, supporters of this new bill -- of these new laws, they point to the crime rate in Jackson, which has seen a homicide rate per year that has doubled over the past 10 years. Peaking in 2021, the murder rate, 12 times the national average, making Jackson one of the deadliest cities in the U.S.

Let's dig a little deeper now into these new laws. Here's what you should know. They will allow the state of Mississippi to expand reach of state-controlled law enforcement to the entire city of Jackson. This is a force that has primarily protected the capital and the surrounding area, and has not been engaged in city law enforcement. This force does not answer to local officials, but rather state- appointed leadership.

There's also major changes coming to the judicial system, which will establish a new court within the boundaries of the new capital complex improvement district. The judge there will be appointed by the Republican State Chief Justice and the prosecuting attorneys will be appointed by the Republican State Attorney General.

The NAACP filed an electronic lawsuit on Friday, shortly after these bills were signed into law and here's what they said. Lawmakers and Jackson residents have opposed both bills throughout the legislative session, citing outside attempts to increase policing without adequate training, silence dissent from Jackson residents and stripped residents of their voting power to elect judges and district attorneys who served their interests.

We also heard from Governor Tate Reeves before he signed those bills into law on Friday. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TATE REEVES, MISSISSIPI GOVERNOR: I want what's best for Jackson. But for us to continue to see young kids getting killed in the streets, for us to continue to see property crimes that are happening here that are causing businesses to leave, we've got to make sure that we have law in order. And I don't think there's any doubt that if you talk to businesses, and we talked to the residents of Jackson, Capitol Police shows up when there's a crime being committed and they are called.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: These laws go into effect July 1st. Isabel Rosales, CNN, Atlanta.

CHURCH: Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is in Japan right now. The trip is officially part of a four-country trade mission, but it comes amid anticipation that DeSantis will announce his plans to run for president next year. Earlier today, he met with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo. DeSantis told reporters he's not a candidate for the White House yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS, FLORIDA GOVERNOR: I'm not -- I'm not a candidate, so we'll see if and when that changes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Well, later this week, DeSantis will visit Israel as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces backlash for his proposal to overhaul the country's judicial system.

[03:35:00]

CHURCH: Here's what Netanyahu had to say about DeSantis' visit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Why not? I meet with Republican governors and Democratic governors. I'm not avoiding the question. And actually, I'm -- I'm rushing right into it. I meet with every American representative, governor, senator, members of Congress. And I think it's my job. And I think it's important for Israel's bipartisan support in the United States. I make a point of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: For more, let's go to CNN's Hadas Gold. She joins us live from Jerusalem.

Good to see you, Hadas. Also, Israel's Prime Minister agreed to meet with Ron DeSantis as part of his world trip. So, what's likely to come out of that meeting for both sides, given Florida's governor is set to challenge Donald Trump for the GOP nomination for president?

HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, this definitely sounds like for Ron DeSantis, the type of trip you would want to take before you announce your run for president, to further burnish your foreign policy credentials. Ron DeSantis is also expected to speak at an event marking the 75th anniversary of Israel's founding, which is this week. This is not his first time visiting Jerusalem or even visiting

Netanyahu. He visited in 2019 where he boasted that Florida was the most pro-Israel state in the United States. Now, for Benjamin Netanyahu, this is a pretty obvious meeting. This is a governor of a very important state with a very high Jewish population and also as a potential presidential candidate. And will likely be a pretty friendly and easy meeting, especially when you look at how his relationship right now is going with the Biden administration.

What will be interesting to see is actually Donald Trump's reaction to all of this, because if you remember, when Trump was an office, Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump essentially had this bromance. And Trump fulfilled many of Netanyahu's wish list, including recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But since Trump left office, they've had a bit of a falling out. Trump has even accused Netanyahu of essentially disloyalty, and there hasn't been much interaction between the two since. So, it would be very interesting to see how and if Donald Trump will react to this meeting between DeSantis and Netanyahu, and whether that will affect whatever potential future relationship there might be between Trump and Netanyahu. Rosemary.

CHURCH: And Hadas, so, you have been talking with a Palestinian TV journalist about the challenges he faces reporting from Israel. What did you find?

GOLD: Yeah, Rosemary. So often, we think about Israelis and Palestinians. We think that they lead theses completely separate lives and that they only meet each other in conflict. Now, of course, the reality on the ground, as in most places in the world is much more complicated and intertwined in that.

One place where that divide still very much exists is in the media. And that's why I found this one reporter particularly interesting, not only because of his personal story, but how he's breaking barriers while still facing really threats and challenges from his own community. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOLD (voice-over): Nearly every evening on Israeli News Channel KAN 11, one of the top reporters speak Hebrew with a very slight accent. Suleiman Maswadeh is a rare entity in Israeli media, one of very few Palestinians reporting in Hebrew and not just on Arab issues.

GOLD: How do you identify yourself?

SULEIMAN MASWADEH, KAN 11 CORRESPONDENT: I don't know because I was born in East Jerusalem to a Palestinian family, to a Palestinian culture and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm Arab-Palestinian. But I also live in Israel and also feel Israelian in some ways. I don't know. I just say I come from Jerusalem and I'm a journalist, and that's two most important things of my identity. GOLD (voice-over): Maswadeh grew up in the old city of Jerusalem,

playing soccer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound attending a strict Islamic boys' school. Though he now reports the news in fluent Hebrew, he did not learn the language until he was 20 years old, which is just seven years ago.

GOLD: What prompted you to want to become a reporter?

MASWADEH: Back in the Second Intifada, I lived in Jerusalem and you remember that -- the explosions in the buses in Jerusalem. And I didn't know what's happening. You know, I didn't speak Hebrew, I just look at the TV and I felt that I want to be there, like I want to report, I want to do something.

GOLD (voice-over): His journey to journalism was not a straight one, working at a hotel, studying accounting at a Palestinian university, and then learning Hebrew before attending an Israeli college. Maswadeh landed an internship with the Israeli Public Broadcaster KAN's Arabic Channel. And after a jump to the network's main Hebrew channel, he became a Jerusalem correspondent where he's covered everything from clashes between police and Palestinians in refugee camps to Israeli politics.

His first major scoop put the spotlight on his constant internal dilemma, how to balance pressure from his community versus the story.

[03:40:00]

GOLD: In 2020, Maswadeh showed how Covid restrictions were being violated at an Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites in Islam. The backlash was swift.

MASWADEH: And I remember that my grandfather called me and told me that everyone there is you know talking to him and telling him that what his grandson did is a shame to the community.

GOLD (voice-over): Maswadeh says he feels like he is an important voice for Palestinians in the newsroom. Here, he breaks the Ramadan fast this year with dates at his desk, teaching his colleagues the blessing.

Though he says his family is proud of him, he also says they want him to quit. When he visits them in Shuafat refugee camp, he does so only late at night for his own protection.

GOLD: You said you received death threats. Did these come from Israelis, from Palestinians, and how do you deal with that?

MASWADEH: I get death - I got death threats from both sides, but it was mainly from Palestinians who don't like the fact that I work for Israeli TV. My answer to that is, this is where you make things different, like I can make effect on people's life here on Israeli TV. I feel that -- that I am, you know, giving a message for Jewish people that if you give all the people or citizens of East Jerusalem a chance like I got, everyone can be like me. GOLD (voice-over): Last month, Maswadeh was promoted to be a political correspondent and is even anchoring, vowing to continue breaking barriers with every report.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLD: And Suleiman is also moving from his hometown of Jerusalem to the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv as part of his promotion. Quite a rise for somebody if you think about, he didn't even speak the language he reports in until seven years ago. Rosemary.

CHURCH: Yeah, an impressive report there, Hadas Gold, many thanks, joining us live from Jerusalem.

And we'll be right back.

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[03:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Well, activists who fled Iran are finding the government is tracking them to discourage dissent. The repressive regime in Tehran is even targeting the families they left behind.

Salma Abdelaziz picks up the disturbing story from Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Women and girls, hair flowing, dancing at a gathering in Paris for women, life, freedom, the slogan of Iran's anti-government movement. But even here firmly within the borders of Europe, activists say Tehran's tentacles can reach and crush voices of dissent.

Activist Massi Kamari fled here to France about four years ago as a political refugee.

KAMARI (PH): Since I'm here, -- I am -- I can freely explain my feelings, I try to be the voice of my people in Iran that are suffering.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): But Kamari says she soon found herself under threat again. She says Iran's intelligence service was harassing her parents back home, demanding to speak to her.

KAMARI: They taken my mother's phone and they pushed me and they forced me to call my mother's phone. And then there was a guy who answered.

ABDELAZIZ: So, this man answered your mother's phone.

KAMARI: Yeah, exactly. ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Kamari said she recorded the chilling call

with a man she believes is a member of Iranian intelligence, though CNN cannot verify that.

UNKNOWN (through translator): Whatever action you take against the Islamic Republic there in France is a crime, the man says, and your family will answer for it.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): "No, sir," she responds, "Nowhere in the world is that the law." "Listen," he says, "your mother will be taken to Evan prison. At her age, your sister and your father will also be taken to Evan prison. They will be interrogated."

KAMARI: It was so hard, I mean, because I don't understand how far these people can go.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The Islamic Republic is brutally cracking down on a popular uprising that has rocked the country for months. Dissidents abroad play a crucial role in this movement, carrying protesters demands from the streets of Iran into the halls of western governments.

"That's exactly why Iran is expanding its repression campaign," says this activist of three decades.

NAZILA GOLESTAN, HAMAVA NGO FOUNDER: It is a fact that the regime of Iran, they have the power. But we, we are the opposition, and -- but we are, I think, numerous. We have a bridge with for today, the people inside and the people outside.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): And nowhere is safe.

MASIH ALINEJAD, IRANINAN-AMERICAN JOURNALIST: I could have been killed.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): In January, the U.S. Justice Department uncovered a plot to assassinate prominent Iranian dissident, Masih Alinejad near her home in Brooklyn. The State Department has warned that Tehran is engaged in other acts of transnational repression to intimidate or exact reprisal against individuals outside of the country's sovereign borders, according to a 2022 report.

CNN's requests for comment to Iran's authorities have gone answered. For now, Kumari says her parents are safe, but she barely speaks to them as a precaution.

ABDELAZIZ: How -- how do you still come out and do your work and do your --

KUMARI: Because I'm not gonna stop my activities because they are threatening me.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): A critical community in exile, under threat and under pressure, but unbowed and unafraid.

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Paris. CHURCH: And we'll be back in just a moment.

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[03:50:00]

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CHURCH: Twitter's Blue checkmark chaos is getting even more complicated. After Elon Musk removed the verifications last week, they started popping up again on some accounts over the weekend. And with it a note saying, those users bought Twitter Blue. But there's one problem. Many did not. Even accounts of people like Pele or Kobe Bryant claim, they purchased Twitter Blue, even though they passed away long before its inception.

Well, earlier I spoke with Thomas Germain, Senior Reporter with Gizmodo and I asked him how this move will impact what his credibility.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

THOMAS GERMAIN, GIZMODO SENIOR REPORTER: He took something that was incredibly valuable, right? People wanted to be verified on Twitter. It was sort of a status symbol. It gave you a boost in the algorithm, and he turned it into sort of a weird mark of Cain that it was a sign that you're a supporter of Elon Musk, which is something that a lot of people don't want to be, given how he's presented himself.

And it caused a lot of really serious problems. We saw immediately, people impersonating celebrities and, you know, more importantly, institutions, right? I looked at pages for the IRS, right, which collects taxes in the United States. There were at least six different accounts masquerading as the IRS. This can cause really serious problems. And it's why Twitter introduced this system in the first place because on a platform that's this big, insignificant, it's important to know that important people are who they say they are.

So, he took something that people wanted and turned it into something that people actively didn't want. There were people who, after he removed all of the blue checks from the old accounts, still have them for some strange reason that wasn't entirely clear. And people were actively trying to get rid of these blue checks or confirmed that they didn't -- they weren't actually paying Elon Musk, I swear I'm not one of these people.

It's really astonishing how badly he mismanaged this, because I think it's something that actually could have made him a lot of money if he had handled it a little more carefully.

CHURCH: Right, yeah. Now, it's become a badge of honor not to have the check mark and me included.

GERMAIN: Right.

CHURCH: I'm sure you're the same. Realizing what was happening, of course, Musk tried to give back some blue check marks to big celebrities. But the damage was already done with many of those bigger accounts, calling on everyone to #BlockTheBlue accounts because they can't be trusted as anything but of course, paid accounts trying to cause havoc here.

[03:55:00]

CHURCH: So, what will be the impact of this effort to block paid accounts? And why didn't Musk realize how this would play out?

GERMAIN: Yeah, in terms of what he didn't realize it, I think there's honestly no other answer than what we're seeing as someone who's not thinking critically about his actions before he takes them, which is something that maybe works when you're running a company that makes rockets or cars. But on social media, where you've got hundreds of millions of people, you need to proceed a little more carefully.

I think it really is going to do long term damage to Twitter as a platform. It -- look, we've already seen a number of examples of people trying to launch up alternates and people migrating to other systems because they just lost, like you said, trust in Twitter, and also it's lost kind of the fun, I think, for a lot of people here.

It's a move that I think has really done permanent damage to Twitter's reputation. I think it's going to be difficult for it to get it back. And it could be the beginning of the end for this platform.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: All right. I want you to take a look now at this astonishing video from a falling skier's helmet camera. It shows a member of an expert skiing team tumbling into a deep crevasse in the French Alps. Incredibly, the skier was unhurt. His team told CNN, they were able to get him out in five minutes, thanks to the right equipment. And this happened last year. But the team said it's posting the video now to remind other skiers to take proper precautions.

And thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. I'm Rosemary Church, CNN Newsroom continues with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo, next.

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