Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Search Effort Grows in Race to Find Missing Sub; Ukraine's Allies Meet to Discuss Recovery Challenges; U.S. Border Cities See Slowdown in Migrant Flow. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired June 21, 2023 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome, back to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Bianca Nobilo.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let's you bring up to date with our top stories.

The U.S. Coast Guard says Canadian aircraft have detected underwater noises in the search area for a missing submersible in the North Atlantic. But so far, they haven't been able to identify the source. An internal U.S. government memo says banging sounds were heard, every 30 minutes on Tuesday. Though is unclear for how long and sonar devices picked up more sounds hours later.

NOBILO: The sub called Titan, lost contact with its mothership Sunday, less than two hours into its descent to the wreckage of the Titanic. It's still unclear what caused the sub to lose contact. It's believed the crew now has less than 30 hours of oxygen left.

CNN's Tom Foreman spoke with a former OceanGate passenger from a previous Titanic expedition to get a sense of what the journey inside the submersible is like.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: OceanGate Expeditions offers you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a specially trained crew member safely diving to the Titanic wreckage site.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That quarter million- dollar trip may look like a luxury adventure on the surface, but beneath the waves, ask Aaron Newman who took the Titan to the Titanic in 2021.

AARON NEWMAN, FORMER OCEANGATE EXPEDITION PASSENGER: I wouldn't it plus. It was very comfortable.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Fully loaded with five people, the quarters are tight, he says, hot near the surface of the water and nearly freezing in the depths. Propellers to move the vehicle and their controls seem rudimentary, although he and the company insists, they are adequate.

NEWMAN: Not super complicated. And you know, so they have two sets of fans that, you know, up and down and left and right.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But communications, that's another story. The craft checks in with the ship above through a text messaging system every 15 minutes, relying on that system for safety and guidance. Former Navy submarine officer Van Gurley.

CAPT. JOHN "VAN" GURLEY, U.S. NAVY (RET.): So, all those things we're used to now with GPS and Wi-Fi and radio links do not work under the ocean. And then, you know, the pressure is just immense.

FOREMAN (voice-over): OceanGate says Titan's carbon fiber and titanium hull has proven itself against that pressure repeatedly. A monitoring system is set to warn the pilot of any problems. And even if everything else fails, Newman, who is now an investor in OceanGate, notes the vessel should drop its external weights and rise automatically.

NEWMAN: It is designed to come back up.

FOREMAN (voice-over): So the fact that there seems to be no clue as to Titan's whereabouts is deeply troubling to those who know the deep ocean best.

GURLEY: The fact that this vehicle has not come back to the surface does not bode well. Either it's an entanglement issue or there's a broader set of -- series of failures that have it now on the bottom.

[04:35:00]

FOREMAN: It's worth noting, Aaron Newman knows two of the people on this missing submersible and he praises them as very brave in their efforts to exploration the deep oceans and he hopes to see them again very soon.

Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Millions in the U.S. South and Southwest are under an extreme heat advisory. Authorities say more than 38 million Americans are under active alerts and warnings where hundreds of thousands are without power. The scorching temperatures are concentrated across large sways of Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. In Texas, several cities have been dealing with intense heat. And the city of St. Angelo set a new record for its hottest temperature ever on Tuesday. The National Weather Service is warning that daily records can be broken throughout the week with peak heat occurring Tuesday and Wednesday.

FOSTER: Meanwhile, in India, officials are investigating the deaths of dozens of people in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, that have been linked to a heat wave. At least 68 people died last week as temperatures soared and many others were hospitalized.

NOBILO: And in the state of Bihar at least 44 people lost their lives in recent days. Temperatures in some parts have reached 46 degrees Celsius, that's more than 114 degrees Fahrenheit. FOSTER: Ukraine says its top priority right, now is to exhaust Russian

forces before the main strike of a counteroffensive which is still ahead.

NOBILO: They're doing that by targeting Russian artillery and armed systems. Officials in Kyiv say Moscow is hemorrhaging military resources on the frontlines.

FOSTER: But Russia claims they'll stop Ukraine's advances in one area. Threatening to blanket defense forces with aviation artillery.

NOBILO: As Ukraine prepares for even tougher battles ahead, its allies are looking towards reconstruction. This hour the Ukraine recovery conference is under here in London.

FOSTER: And Nic Robertson joins us now. You've been watching that speech from Mr. Zelenskyy.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And he's been laying out why it's a good place to invest in Ukraine, despite the war. He says despite Russia's aggression, Ukraine is modernizing, its reforming government structures to avoid the perception and the reality of corruption. He says there are digital platforms for businesses now to register, so there's no opportunity for the government to get involved between business-to-business transactions. That the law calls for more favorably. $400 billion is the figure that I just heard him mention, the possible cost of reconstruction and rebuilding.

He said, look, we're a good place to invest in the future because we have energy, green energy. Obviously solar power is pretty big there are ready, but other green energy supplies, a source of lithium, he said. Agriculture, 600 million people around the world depend on Ukrainian agriculture. So these are all reasons that he said that this is the time to invest in Ukraine. \

Of course, to some investors, Ukraine right now might look like a bottomless pit with sticky sides, bottomless because the war is going on. You tip your money in. When do you get your return? And if the war continues for a long time, you may never get that money back. Sticky sides because the perceptions and reality of corruption that Zelenskyy says is being reformed. The British Prime Minister has unveiled what he said today as the first G7 nation -- U.K. being the first G7 nation to have a bilateral aid agreement, multiyear bilateral aid agreement with Ukraine, $305 million. That the U.K. as well, helping World Bank loan guarantees, to the tune of $3 billion. A lot more figures to come out today.

FOSTER: It comes at a time, doesn't it, where the Western government are really struggling -- particularly the U.K. We've seen now, you know, you've got, you know, the economy is in real trouble. Is that why they're leaning towards the private sector and trying to get them to invest in Ukraine and using that as a way of reconstruction in the country?

ROBERTSON: I think it's a way of extending the political support as well. Yes, government absolutely need more than ever. Because of the fact, in the U.K. they call it sticky inflation, but inflation not coming down at the rate the government was expecting. So therefore, the amount of money the government has to spend to service its own debt goes up. So, it puts them more in hock to their debtors into their creditors, rather and yes, they need to turn to the private sector. And this is one way to help offset that. But politically, just to nail that point politically, because publics need to see it's not just their money that is supporting Ukraine. It's businesses as well getting behind this huge lift to repair the country.

FOSTER: OK, Nic, thank you very much indeed.

NOBILO: Up, next migrants have been flooding into Mexico but some say it's now become more difficult to cross into the U.S. We'll explain why, just ahead.

[04:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: It's been just over a month since U.S. officials brace for a significant influx of migrants, as the pandemic era immigration policy known as Title 42 came to an end.

NOBILO: But in the weeks since the flow of migrants has slowed in the U.S. While a surge is taking place instead across the border in Mexico. CNN's David Culver has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the Texas-Mexico border, U.S. law enforcement patrol the tranquil waters of the Rio Grande. The flow of migrants here slowing to a trickle since Title 42 ended in May. On sidewalks in El Paso that last month were covered with migrants, today only a handful camp out.

But travel more than 500 miles south into places like Mexico City and the numbers are rapidly rising, overwhelming for the Catholic nuns who run this shelter. Sister Maria Silva says, at night, every aspect of the shelter floor --

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

CULVER (voice-over): Inside and outside covered with the thin mattresses you see stacked around us.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

CULVER: Wow, that Mexico City, which is very far from the border, as she sees it, has now become a border town but in the center of Mexico.

CULVER (voice-over): The migrants here spend their mornings trying to get an appointment with a U.S. asylum officer, using the CBP1 app. Getting a confirmed date nearly impossible for some.

CULVER: You can tell it's crushing her. And I said, so what are you guys going to do? And they said, just wait. Wait for the date.

CULVER (voice-over): Maria Jose Camacho and her husband Ender Diaz (ph) from Venezuela, arrived two weeks ago in Mexico with their 4- year-old daughter, who have been here for the past several days.

CULVER: They feel like after Title 42 expired, that it's now much more difficult to try to cross.

CULVER (voice-over): Title 42, the pandemic era immigration policy, allowed U.S. officials to immediately expel migrants who cross illegally without processing their claims for asylum.

[04:45:00]

Those same migrants would often try and try again until they got in.

Now Title 8 back in full effect. Sure it gives migrants the right to claim asylum. But those who fail to qualify risk being banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.

The result? Migrants flooding into Mexico where they then wait to figure out how they can get into the U.S.

CULVER: And you can see encampments have already taken up most of this little square here. You can see along this street, you've got an art gallery, a nice restaurant, but then just turn the corner here and look down the sidewalk. You can see tents and families who have been set up for days and weeks with nowhere else to go at this point.

CULVER (voice-over): We drive an hour outside Mexico City where a government-run shelter is set up to handle the overflow. Officials tell us most here from Haiti. Make shift medical stations. This little girl complaining of a sore throat. Her dad says she's not wanted to eat in five days. They pass the time doing chores and playing sports. Their cell phones sit in a web of chargers. Battery power fuels their chances of getting an online CBP appointment. Eventually, they move on.

CULVER: So, you can these folks here are going to be boarding the bus. They're going to meet with Mexican authorities and get paperwork that allows them asylum in Mexico. Basically, they're trying to buy more time. So, as to them to continue on their journey to get closer to the U.S. southern border. Eventually get an appointment with an U.S. asylum officer and they hope to enter the U.S. legally.

CULVER (voice-over): Since Title 42 expired, migrant crossings are down, for now at least. We visited Eagle Pass, Texas. Main Street, quiet. But Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales warns what we saw building up in Mexico will push north.

REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): So it's almost a calm -- I say calm, there's 800 apprehensions a day, just in the Del Rio sector. On the other side -- in the Mexican side, it's just building up, building up. The cartel will adapt and then that will be the next thing that they send over. CULVER (voice-over): U.S. border officials warn as more migrants either fail to qualify for asylum or grow frustrated waiting, they're turning to cartel-controlled smugglers to get across. The congressman proposing a bipartisan approach to counter that.

GONZALES: So I'm of the mindset, stop sending them down that route. Send them another route, work visas, make sense to me. Remove the politics in it. Remove the -- you have access to vote or have access to social services. And say, hey, do you want to have a job? We have a job for you. Link up the two.

CULVER (voice-over): Back in Mexico City, we find Maria Jose and their daughter walking a busy commercial street carrying a sign and candies.

CULVER: We're Venezuelan migrant family and we're asking for your support.

CULVER (voice-over): They tell me they're out here three hours twice a day.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

CULVER: She was a nurse in Venezuela and so doing this, resorting to having to sell things, it's different, as she points out. But she'd rather do this than just ask for money.

CULVER: Now given the buildup of migrants that we are seeing right now in Mexico, one group in particular seeing this as an opportunity. That is Mexican cartel-backed smugglers. And we've seen in the past, of course, they've traffic folks using the back of cars, in trunks in particular, containers from trucks. Now according to U.S. officials, they're seeing recent cases of migrants following smugglers into the U.S. by swimming through the Pacific Ocean at night. It shows you just how increasingly desperate and dangerous some of these journeys are.

David culver, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: In Greece, the nine Egyptian men suspected of smuggling hundreds of migrants, who died in a boat accident last week appeared in court on Tuesday. The Greek Coast Guard says that they faced several charges including setting up a criminal organization, manslaughter and illegal trafficking of foreigners. All the suspects have maintained their innocence.

NOBILO: Meanwhile, Pakistani officials say 88 people have officially been registered as missing by family members just days after the government said that the accident left close to 300 Pakistanis dead. At least 82 people were killed and hundreds are missing after the boat sank off the Greek coast.

FOSTER: Just ahead, a new report finds the world is falling behind on achieving global gender equality. We'll have details with key findings.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NOBILO: New data shows the inflation rate and the U.K. is holding steady. In May annual inflation remained stark at 8.7 percent. This comes just one day before an interest rate decision is set to be announced. The latest figure could make it more likely that the Bank of England will have to hike interest rates again.

FOSTER: For sure.

Now, to the NFL and more trouble for Miami Dolphins' wide receiver, Tyreek Hill. Police are reporting investigating allegations that he hit an employee during a disagreement at a Miami Beach marina on Sunday. The Dolphins have released a statement saying that they are aware of the situation. Hill pleaded guilty to assaulting his pregnant girlfriend in 2014 whilst he was still in college.

NOBILO: The National Football League has set six key rules on gambling for players, following a slate of violation in recent months. The league says some of the rules have been in place for some time now. Such as don't bet on the NFL. League officials say the availability in ease of gambling has increased in recent years, due in part to the ability to place bets they're not playing.

And now, switching to the stories in the spotlight this hour. There's nothing like an afternoon nap to boost your energy and get you through the day. That's definitely true of us who nap as we sort of got a couch in our office.

FOSTER: We do.

NOBILO: That a lot of people sleep on. And new research says that daytime naps may be good for our brain.

[04:55:00]

A study in the journal, "Sleep Health," links napping to larger brain volume, which could lower the risk of dementia and other diseases.

FOSTER: Earlier research shows a frequent or excessive napping was associated with high blood pressure and Alzheimer's. But doctors say that might be because people who nap a lot probably aren't getting proper sleep at night. It's a Mediterranean sort of life, isn't it? When you have a siesta.

NOBILO: Yes, have a siesta.

FOSTER: Now women won't achieve gender equality with men for another 131 years, not until 2054. That is according to new report by the World Economic Forum.

NOBILO: It found that overall gender gap only close by 0.3 percent compared to last year. The gender gap index measures parity across four areas and those are economics, education, health and political empowerment. FOSTER: The World Economic Reform also estimates it will take 169

years to achieve global economic equality and 162 years for political parity. Why is it slowing down do you think?

NOBILO: I don't know. So that means that they'll have to wait another 160 years. So that's why I might not spend as much makeup time in the chair as you.

FOSTER: You'll still be here. I might not be.

NOBILO: After more than 60 years, a long overdue Eagle Scout ceremony was held in Washington state.

FOSTER: A 75-year-old, Samuel Lynn jones, became an Eagle Scout at the age of 15. But was denied public recognition. The white scoutmaster at the time reportedly told Jones that he did not come from a model African American home. Jones was raised by a single mother and public housing. It wasn't until a church member pushed him to work with the sponsored Boy Scout group, that they learned of Jones's past.

NOBILO: And, on Monday night, the Vietnam veteran and retired Naval commander finally received the public honor with his daughter by his side.

FOSTER: A wonderful moment. Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Max Foster.

NOBILO: And I'm Bianca Nobilo. EARLY START is up next right here on CNN.

[05:00:00]