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CNN International: Growing List of Nations Rush to Get Citizens, Diplomats to Safety; Russian State Media: Lavrov to meet U.N. Chief Monday; Biden Set to Announce Re-Election Campaign Tuesday; How Hard it is to get out of Sudan; China Banking Scandal Affecting Thousands of People. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 24, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNNI HOST: Hello and welcome to CNN "Newsroom", I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, an escalation crisis in Sudan sees thousands desperately trying to escape as foreign nations run and rush to get their people out. We are live in the region with more on this unfolding story.

Also ahead, Russia's Foreign Minister is in New York today to chair a U.N. Security Council meeting and is already hitting out of the U.S. Plus, CNN hears from the voiceless victims of a banking crisis in China. Many of them still can't get access to their money, months after they were promised they'd be paid back.

Land and Sea nations from around the world are scrambling to get their citizens out of harm's way as the security situation in Sudan deteriorates. A deadly power struggle between rival military factions is now in its 10th day. Embassies are being closed and diplomatic staff is also being evacuated.

Meanwhile, in the Capital Khartoum phone lines are down, internet services sketchy and authorities are urging residents huddled in their homes to stay there. Let's get CNN's Stephanie Busari. She's in Lagos, Nigeria. It does seem as though there's a massive operation underway, and some countries are handling it better than others.

STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR AT AFRICA: Yes, Max, the situation is very volatile and the evacuation efforts have been hampered by bombardments we just heard in the last few minutes at least 50 people have been killed in a shelling in Khartoum, which has hit the Turkish hospital. And this is according to this Doctor's Union of Sudan.

And so these ongoing fighting is hampering efforts to evacuate citizens. Some countries, such as the U.S., U.K., France and Canada, among others have managed to get their diplomats out and some private citizens have to make their way in bus journeys to countries such as Egypt alongside other Sudanese citizens.

And his verse journeys are not easy at all. We're here in very uncomfortable journeys where very young babies have been a part of the passengers and they are some of them sitting on the floor. It's about 1000 kilometers away from Khartoum to as one in Egypt. So that people are faced in desperate situations to try to get out of Sudan. Do they stay and face bombing and dwindling food and water supplies, lack of electricity? Or do they get on the road and make these very, very dangerous journeys, Max?

FOSTER: It's going to, you know, it's obviously difficult for the people trying to get out far more difficult for the people that are going to be stuck there. And we're not going to get a lot of information or we want sort of the foreigners have left?

BUSARI: Well, that's what the Sudanese are saying there's growing sense of anger from being leftist fend for themselves so as countries scrambled to get their systems out and their diplomats. They say, what about us who are coming for us? And this is one of the poorest countries in the world already beset by lots of problems such as food insecurity in parts of the country.

So even leaving the country is out of the reach of many of Sudanese citizens. So there's a sense of people feeling abandoned once all foreign workers and foreign citizens are gone. Are people still going to care about us? That's the question that people are asking, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Stephanie in Lagos, so monitoring things for us, thank you. We are also waiting on a key meeting between Russia's Foreign Minister and the U.N. Security General. Russian State Media says Sergei Lavrov will meet Antonio Guterres in New York today; a big topic of discussion is likely to be the Black Sea grain deal.

We'll have more on that in just a moment. But first Lavrov will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting in a couple of hours with the Russia holding the council's presidency this month. He's already had some stern remarks for Washington over what he says is its refusal to issue visas to Russian journalists covering the event.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: This country, which calls itself the strongest, the smartest, the freest, the most just got cold feet. It did a really stupid thing. I'm convinced. It also showed the real worth of its oath about protecting freedom of speech, free information access, and so on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Matthew Chance is that the United Nations with the very latest on this is a huge moment, isn't it for Lavrov to have this moment chairing this very powerful body? How do you think he's going to use it?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Max. Well, it's a good question.

[08:05:00]

I think that one of the things that the Russians have been doing since the beginning of April when they took on the presidency of the Security Council is using the platform as a way of promoting the issues that they want to promote in a way that they want to promote them.

For instance, earlier this month, there was a discussion at U.N. headquarters here in New York, about the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, the Russian Official responsible for that transfer appeared as the keynote speaker. But of course, she's is being indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and accused along with President Putin of abducting Ukrainian children.

There was another meeting chaired by the Russians, again about arms control, in which the United States and others in the West were accused of violating their arms control agreements by pouring weapons into Ukraine, to the point that U.S. diplomats had to make the point that the reason that weapons are going to Ukraine is to defend it against the Russian invasion.

And today, the meeting that's going to be chaired by Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, is about ways in which to defend the U.N. Charter, which was set up to stop countries invading other countries essentially. And of course, the irony of that is that Russia has launched an invasion, or has embarked on the invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.

And so there are lots of critics here in the United States and elsewhere in the world as well, that saying that, you know, Russia is using this opportunity, this presidency of the Security Council to effectively to troll the West and troll the rest of the world with the various events that it's staging.

FOSTER: OK, Matthew will be back with you, of course, as we get details of the meeting. This all comes as Russia is threatening to terminate the Black Sea grain deal, which is because the crucial to easing the world's hunger crisis, as it safeguards the passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain and oil seeds from Black Sea ports.

Russia says the initiative will be over if G7 countries ban exports to Russia. Clare Sebastian joins us here just clarify this, it's very confusing about where this grain is going to?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, so the background here is, of course, this black sea green initiative that was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey back in July. And alongside that was a memorandum of understanding between Russia and the U.N. that Russia had demanded would involve alleviating some sanctions that it said was preventing its own food and fertilizer from reaching the market.

So that part of the deal Russia says has not been met, it's still having trouble with its own exports. And that is why it's threatening to pull out of the deal. There's another obviously elements of this that Dmitry Medvedev, the Former President and Prime Minister has added in, which is this consideration by the G7 to flip around the way that it restricts exports to Russia from just restricting some of them to de facto restricting all of them with some exceptions.

So it has obviously taken great offense to that and is now threatening to cancel the grain deal. It's done this before Russia pulled out of the deal in the autumn and then returned. So this is a way of sort of showing its leveraging this major diplomatic achievement, really the only one that was made in this war that has huge consequences for the world and doing it at a pretty sort of interesting time when we know that.

For example, Ukrainian grain exports into certain European countries have been stopped because they're worried about a glut undercutting their own farmers just comes just weeks before Turkish presidential elections. So it seems that the timing of this is interesting, but it's not necessarily in Moscow's interest to pull out of this deal altogether.

FOSTER: OK. Thank you, Clare. U.S. President Joe Biden plans to make it official tomorrow he is running for re-election. His team is finalizing the details of the campaign ahead of Tuesday's expected video announcement. Mr. Biden spent the weekend at Camp David.

According to sources he was putting the final touches on his campaign launch, but recent polling shows his age at 80 could be a major factor in the campaign. According to an NBC poll 70 percent of those surveyed said he shouldn't run again. And almost half of them cited his age.

White House correspondent Arlette Saenz joins us now from Washington. There are criticisms obviously about his decision to run again, but they don't seem to be many other democratic contenders that the wider world would know about.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As you noted, there are some strong political headwinds that President Biden is facing when it comes to that public perception of whether or not he should run again for President with the majority of Americans, saying that he should not seek re-election and having some divide even within his own Democratic Party, as half of Democrats do not believe he should run for a second term.

But Democrats have yet to really present any type of formidable option to take on President Biden heading into the 2024 election. Now, chief among the concerns is President Biden's age.

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He is 80 years old, he'd be 82 at the time of inauguration if he wins a second term and 86 if he completes that second term as well but really his advisers have argued that in the long run they don't believe that these concerns about his age will ultimately impact voters.

Allies are out there saying that they believe the President has a strong record to run on, and that voters ultimately will side with him when they look at the alternatives being presented on the Republican side, including Former President Donald Trump.

But President Biden even as he's facing these challenges towards his campaign, the President spent the weekend at Camp David finalizing some of those details that needed to be put into place as he prepares for this possible launch. Advisors have been working towards launching this tomorrow, with a possibility of rolling out a video likely tomorrow.

And they're also starting to settle on some of the key details for the campaign, including who will run the campaign. Sources have told us that the President has selected areas expected to select Julie Chavez Rodriguez as the campaign manager.

She is one of the most senior aides here at the White House, the Director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, working with state and local officials to implement President Biden's agenda. She is also the granddaughter of the labor icon Cesar Chavez, and if she does become the campaign manager, she would become only the second Latina, a woman to run a presidential campaign in history.

She has earned the trust of President Biden and his advisors here at the White House and would be working hand in hand with those senior aides to really carry out this campaign. But allies will be on tomorrow to see whether President Biden does formally launch that campaign as he is facing some very steep challenges ahead. Chiefly among those concerns people have about his age.

FOSTER: OK, all that signs. Thank you for joining us from the White House for that preview. Now, police in Kenya have exhumed at least 47 bodies from a forest near the coastal Town of Malindi. It's believed they were all members of a Christian cult. They thought they'd go to heaven if they starve themselves to death.

Church leader Paul McKinsey has been arrested. Local media report he's refusing to eat or drink whilst in police custody. Credit Suisse says depositors pulled more than $75 billion in the first quarter of this year. And the company says money is still leaving the bank this is happening as UBS racist to complete its rescue of the trouble bank or takeover was announced more than a month ago scandals and compliance failures.

Of course Credit Suisse is profit and many of his clients. The bank says withdrawals have stabilized but not yet reversed. The U.S. retail chain "Bed, Bath and Beyond" has filed for bankruptcy. The company is planning to sell office inventory, then go out of business.

It has 360 stores and thousands of employees are the latest large American retailer to go belly up as interest rates rise and discretionary spending falls. Still to come as nations are scrambling to get their citizens out of Sudan. We'll take a closer look at the evacuation efforts and ask why some countries have only evacuated diplomatic staff?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:00]

How hard it to get out of Sudan evacuation efforts is are underway to get foreign citizens out of the country? U.S. government personnel and their families have already been evacuated and embassy operation suspended. However, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby just told CNN, the U.S. does not foresee coordinating a government plan to evacuate U.S. citizens and encourage Americans to shelter in place.

And some British systems in Sudan say they feel abandoned by the government following the evacuation of diplomats only. Meanwhile, the European Union's top diplomat says that more than 1000 EU citizens have already been evacuated while French flights have so far evacuated civilians from at least 28 countries.

You're looking at pictures of French nationals arriving there in Djibouti. Djibouti has become a vital evacuation corridor. CNN's Sam Kiley is there and joins me now. We've had so many questions about the way this has been handled, Sam a lot of frustration by citizens in those countries not being evacuated while the diplomats are.

And some people suggesting surely the diplomat should be the last people to leave, so they can manage the efforts for the citizens?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think Max, that is a long standing historic complaint, particularly leveled, I think historically against the British who frequently have been accused of not prioritizing the interests of British nationals over their relationship with local authorities.

But more broadly, also, the Americans have been haunted by the killing in Benghazi a few years ago of their own ambassador at the embassy there, again, under a Democratic administration in Libya, during similar period of chaos. So I don't think we should be particularly surprised that the Americans, the Brits, the French, and most of these nations prioritize getting the people for whom they have a kind of direct moral and personal responsibility.

If you like in terms of diplomats, there are some ambassadors from some countries that have remained behind, Max. But more broadly, this is actually a military problem, you can relatively easily take a small number of people, particularly people working for a government, who were in the government communications structures out of the country, if you deploy Special Forces.

Now we saw the British deploy the Special Air Service and paratroopers in a joint operation involving 1200 personnel to get over 100 people out of the country. But if you think that the Americans have got 16 to 19,000 American passport holders in Sudan, the British might have many, many hundreds.

One can assume various nationalities have many, many more than that the Egyptians, of course, have very close by they've managed to evacuate nearly 500 people overland. Now the focus is out of Djibouti here as you've got a huge concentration of International Special Forces, which is why we're not allowed onto the base because these are the most elite.

And secret operators around the world flying missions in and out of Sudan trying to organize, trying to connect themselves to people who are stuck in very difficult circumstances. The fighting in Khartoum, in particular, isn't across front lines. It's a pell-mell across the whole city with pockets of forces fighting one another with civilians, trying to navigate between them frequently.

Crossing the localized frontlines in order to get out very complex situation, which is likely to get more and more complex because there is no sign of any of the negotiations efforts for a ceasefire to get international people evacuated, materializing. And then, Max, on top of that, because you've got poorer countries like Uganda who just had to move people.

There's a report we've got 300 Ugandans on the road to the Ethiopian border, which is a long way away by bus that seems to be the only option for many people, Max.

FOSTER: What do you make of the situation that, you know, the Sudanese will be left with once all the foreigners have left?

KILEY: Well, Sudan as you well know, Max, has emerged from a decade's long civil war between the North and the South the South now an independent entity, the north and cursed with a very vicious civil war in the west of the country and then two coups in the last four or five years or so.

These latest fighting is between two military commanders vying for dominance within an amalgamated national force. And because these are all experienced battle hardened professional fighters, be they military men or formal soldiers.

[08:20:00]

And the government force you've got access too and are using air crafted bomb locations even within the capital city. Things are going to get very great deal bloodier. I've just spoken with a German who's speaking who was evacuated yesterday and she said she's been speaking with her Sudanese friends on the ground.

He's describing dead bodies outside his house very heavy fighting going on in these pockets all over the city. And more widely, there is a drastic shortage of food, fuel, clean water. People at hospitals at least 70 percent of the hospitals in Khartoum are non-functioning at all. The rest of course, really struggling, prisoners have been released from the central prison. Even the zoos now are in danger of collapsing, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Sam, desperate situation. Thank you for bringing us the latest from Djibouti. Now a banking crisis is brewing in one area of China. Now people have taken to the streets to get their money back find out when and if they'll see their money again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Some banking customers in Henan province, China want their money back their funds have been frozen since last year amid a banking scandal and they say their demands are being ignored. Selina Wang reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In China's Central Henan province this month, demonstrators chant Give me my money back when poster reads, America's Silicon Valley Bank customers got their money back in three days. But China's Henan village banks customers haven't been given a cent in a year.

These protesters are victims of a banking scandal that started last April when several small banks in Henan froze depositor funds impacting an estimated 400,000 customers according to a state run magazine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some depositors myself included can no longer survive, because all of our money is stored there. Some people may commit suicide, some depositors may hurt others. Everyone has a tipping point.

WANG (voice over): This banking victim in Beijing is the lawyer who is gathering depositors to sue the local authorities. He says all they want is their money back. But instead they're being tracked, harassed, or even worse. While the banks are now open for business and estimated several thousand still cannot access their money.

The banks that authorities have ignored the victim's relentless efforts to get answers over the past year we're not revealing the identities of all the victims who spoke to us in order to protect their safety. This couple in Shanghai says earlier this year, the government hired people to sneak outside of their apartment for weeks.

On March 4, right before China's biggest annual political meeting in Beijing, they say their car was suddenly stopped on the streets of Shanghai. They were driving to meet a relative and shot this encounter on a phone. Get in our car. The man in the brown jacket demands.

No, she replies. So many people have surrounded us. What are you trying to do, she asks? The couple says the men did black cloth bags over their heads and drove them to an island outside of Shanghai.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were locked up for 11 days they illegally detained us and confiscated our bank cards, phones and wallets. I tried my best to cooperate with them, still they beat me.

[08:25:00]

WANG (voice over): He says the authorities were paranoid they might travel to Beijing to demonstrate during the political meeting. The banks, regulators and local authorities have not responded to CNNs multiple attempts to contact them about these serious allegations.

Last summer, police violently crushed peaceful demonstrators demanding their money back. Then, weeks later, authorities blamed the scandal on financial fraud, arrested hundreds of alleged suspects and promised to start paying depositors back. Chinese media has reported that the government has the crisis under control.

But as ignored the stories of these bank victims. Meanwhile, pro Communist Party social media influencers have been zeroing in on the bank failures in the U.S. This one says explosive news; the U.S. is facing a catastrophe. Another says it might be the end of the U.S. if they fail to handle this well. And state tabloid Global Times published this dramatic info graphic, but the U.S. government quickly stepped in to pay back the depositors in full.

WANG (on camera): Have you received any sympathy, any response from the authorities?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I have not. The government's attitude is that as long as they've suppressed the people with problems, there is no need to pay back the money is completely different from how Silicon Valley Bank was handled.

WANG (voice over): This depositor from Zhouzhuang province went to the protests last summer and says he was beaten by the police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't get the money soon, and then my children and I can only live on the streets.

WANG (on camera): Do you have hope that you're going to get your money back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People like us have been robbed of money, yet we are treated like criminals. If my money cannot be withdrawn, only one option is left for me, which is death.

WANG (voice over): Experts say the crisis in Henan is just the tip of the iceberg as China's economy slows and debt balloons.

ANDREW COLLIER, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ORIENT CAPITAL RESEARCH: What happened in Henan is likely to occur elsewhere in the country. They're willing to oppress people using the police in order to get the message across to the banking system that they can't play fast and loose with money.

WANG (voice over): Back in Beijing, the lawyer says his relentless legal efforts may be their only hope.

WANG (on camera): If you do get the money back. What is your plan?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave the country with kids and parents because I want my children to grow up in a democratic and free and rule of law country.

WANG (voice over): Selina Wang, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: That's it for today. Thank you for joining us. "World Sport" with Amanda is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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