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Torrential Rain Causing Deadly Flooding In Greece; Climate Change Making Severe Weather Events More Intense; New Warning About Possible Kim-Putin Meeting In Russia; Govt.: Russian Traffickers Seek Cubans To Fight In Ukraine; Proud Boys Leader Sentences To 22 Years In Prison; Spain Women's Soccer Team Appoints First Female Coach; Schools Send Dozens Of Girls Home For Wearing Abayas; ISIS Members Caught On Camera Committing Torture. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired September 06, 2023 - 00:00   ET

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

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN NEWSROOM ANCHOR: Coming up on CNN. Greece is facing catastrophic flooding from days of historic and torrential rain. Raging torrents of water are now sweeping through towns and villages.

Artillery from North Korea, new recruits from Cuba. Vladimir Putin's desperate search for material and man power for his war of choice in Ukraine. And the ISIS video they didn't want you to see. Secretly recorded images of the terror group at its worst. New evidence for international prosecutors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from CNN center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.

VAUSE: Thank you for joining us for CNN NEWSROOM. We begin in Greece, which is facing yet another natural disaster. Torrential rain and deadly flooding, which the prime minister has described as totally extreme weather events.

The storm, named Daniel, dumped several months of rain on Tuesday, killing one man who was crushed by a collapsing wall. Cars have been swept away, buildings flooded, many homes and one hospital forced to evacuate. Red storm warnings have been issued by several provinces, especially on the eastern coast.

According to the government, this is the most extreme rainfall within 24 hours since Greece began keeping records. And it comes just days after fire crews contain the largest ever wildfire recorded in the European Union. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers begins our coverage.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And unfortunately, that rainfall is continuing over portions of Greece, places that have already picked up somewhere between 300 and 500 millimeters of rainfall. It is very heavy here.

Just now to the northeast of the low that's in the Mediterranean, and then that's bringing up all of that very warm humidity, all of that very warm water, just to the south of Greece and pushing it right up into the same areas that have seen so much rainfall just over the past 24 to 48 hours. So here for Meteoalarm, level three of three for the rainfall possibilities here.

And yes, we're still seeing the pictures coming out of here, out of Greece. But I know that some of these pictures are old, and they will be updated. But they can't get out of there right now because there's just very little communication coming out of this area, especially video.

Some of them online are quite disturbing and the rainfall is actually continuing, with Zagora now 528 millimeters of rain since this rain has started. And it's in the same place, and it's gonna rain more tonight, and into tomorrow.

This could not even be a 24 to 48 hour event already, and we could still have another 24 hours to go as the continuous rotation of the low pressure pushes that rainfall over the same areas of Greece that have seen so much rainfall already.

VAUSE: Bill McKibben is the founder of Third Act, a climate activist group made up of those aged 60 and older. He's a contributing writer to the New Yorker, and distinguished scholar at Middlebury College. It's good to see you, Bill.

BILL MCKIBBEN, FOUNDER, THIRD ACT: Hey, good to be with you as always, John.

VAUSE: Thanks. Now, these storms in Greece, they're known as medicanes, similar to tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic, or typhoons in the Pacific. Warm sea surface temperatures of 27 to 30 degrees, about 90 degrees fahrenheit, could allow the storm to strengthen across the eastern Mediterranean over the next day or two.

So we know that right now ocean temperatures are at record highs, and that's because of climate change caused by human activity. So, is this a pretty simple direct correlation here, you can make this link to explain how severe weather events are a lot more severe and last a lot longer at the moment because of climate change than they did in the past?

MCKIBBEN: Absolutely. And oceans are a really good place to look. You know, oceans are storing more than 90 percent of the heat we have added to the atmosphere by burning coal, and oil, and gas.

But it's not like that heat just goes into salt water storage and stays there forever. It expresses itself in all kinds of ways. One of them is powering storms. A hurricane draws its energy from that heat from the upper levels of the ocean.

[00:05:06]

And around the world we've seen ocean temperatures this year like we've never seen before. In fact, in Florida just before the last big hurricane, we saw the all time ocean record, 101 degrees fahrenheit. It's a different world that we're creating.

VAUSE: Yeah, and just in the past 24 hours, cyclone rains in Brazil's south kill 22, leave cities completely flooded, that's from the Reuters News Agency. Searches for missing, cleanup operations -- searching for missing, rather, cleanup operations underway and Spain after severe storms.

And also, seven dead as severe storms triggered flooding in Greece, which we know about, but also Turkey and Bulgaria. All of this seems shocking, but not surprising. And, what? Do we have two kinds of options here right now?

We can keep burning fossil fuels, keep pumping out carbon, and we'll go from bad to worse. Or we could stop pumping out carbon, decarbonize, which would be even better, move to renewables, and the climate crisis will still get worse before it gets better.

MCKIBBEN: That's right. We're not getting out of this easily. The question now is whether it's gonna be a difficult century or an impossible one.

And if we stay on the track we're on now, which is slow walking the transition away from fossil fuel, then impossible is where we're headed. Look, this summer in the Northern Hemisphere should have been the wake up call of all wake up calls. It wasn't the summer from hell, it's the summer that more or less was hell.

VAUSE: And the president of the upcoming UN climate change summit known as COP28 delivered this warning. He was speaking at a climate change summit and renewable energy summit in Africa, here he is.

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SULTAN AL JABER, PRESIDENT, COP28: The world is losing the race to secure the goals of the Paris agreement. And the world is struggling to keep 1.5 within reach. Collectively, we must admit that we are not delivering the results we need in the time we need them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Sultan Al Jaber should know why we are losing that race, as the managing director and group CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. In 2021 he --

MCKIBBEN: Yeah. Why was he talking about we?

VAUSE: Exactly.

MCKIBBEN: We're not losing this race. He's the one, his oil company wants to expand production 30 percent or something over the next few years. These guys are absolute all out climate criminals, just like the guys who run Exxon and Shell and BP.

And yet, this guy is hosting the global conference where we're supposed to be trying to do something about this. That should tell you how far behind we've gotten politically.

VAUSE: Because one thing which we know at this point is that we don't really have the option right now of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. If you wanna liken it to smoking, we're at the point where we just gotta go cold turkey and we gotta start building renewable energies, especially in Africa and Asia.

MCKIBBEN: You know, I wrote the first book about climate change, John. It came out in 1989. It's not like we don't -- really we don't know anything now that we didn't know then. If we'd started then, we could've weaned ourselves off slowly and gradually. But we didn't.

We've burned more fossil fuels since that book came out than in all of human history before. So now, now we've got no chance, no choice but to go fast and go hard. Either that, or, you know, get used to the fact that this is what the world is gonna be like for our kids, our grandkids, and everyone who comes after them.

VAUSE: I know what I would prefer at this point. Bill, thanks so much for being with us as always, really appreciate your opinion and your insights.

MCKIBBEN: Thank you, John.

VAUSE: It's great to have you. Thank you sir. According to the White House, talks between Russia and North Korea over a weapons deal are actively moving ahead.

Adding to earlier U.S. intelligence that Kim Jong-Un may be planning to travel to Russia for an in-person meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The White House national security adviser said if Russia is seeking arms from North Korea, then international sanctions are working.

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JAKE SULLIVAN, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We have continued to squeeze Russia's defense industrial base, and they are now going about looking to whatever source they can find for things like artillery ammunition.

That's what we see going on now. And we will continue to call it out. And we will continue to call on North Korea to abide by its public commitments not to supply weapons to Russia that will end up killing Ukrainians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: South Korea's intelligence service says it's also closely monitoring the possibility of a Kim Jong-Un visit to Russia, which would be his first since 2019.

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The Kremlin, when asked about this onTuesday, refused to comment. Two other U.S. officials say the North is seeking technology from Russia that would advance its satellite and nuclear powered submarine capabilities.

If and when Kim visits Russia, he'll likely head there on his slow- moving armored green train. CNN's Will Ripley explains why that's a reclusive leader's preferred mode of travel.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside North Korea, one of the most secretive places on the planet, a carefully guarded state secret is leader Kim Jong-Un's actual location. Major events are often used as decoys. Crowds can wait for hours, enduring long security lines only to find the leader's seat empty.

Even Kim's own bodyguards can serve as decoys. Best known for dawning dark suits, running alongside the leaders limo during the Trump-Kim summits, projecting power and security, riding an armor reinforced rail car to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin, a fellow strongman seen by some as a global pariah.

Putin and Kim come with plenty of baggage, both saddled with heavy sanctions. For Kim's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, for Putin's brutal unprovoked war on Ukraine and suspiciously timed plane crash taking out his one-time critic. Now, the Russian leader may meet another shadowy figure, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un.

Kim may not have a reason to fear Putin, but he still does not take any chances when he travels outside North Korea. U.S. government sources believe Kim Jong-Un will go to Russia this month as Moscow looks to buy artillery and other wartime supplies from its impoverished authoritarian neighbor.

CNN contacted the Russian embassy in Washington for comment. North Korea denied previously supplying Russia with rockets and missiles to use in Ukraine. In July, Putin's defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, was in Pyongyang, as Kim showed off his latest weapons, long-range missiles and military drones. Shoigu said Russia may even be staging joint military drills with the North. National security adviser John Kirby says Putin must be embarrassed asking Kim for help.

JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: He's going to North Korea to try to get artillery shells and the basic materials so that he can continue to shore up his defense industrial base. There is no other way to look at that than desperation and weakness, quite frankly.

RIPLEY (voice-over): The North Korean leader has a lot to gain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A large power is now dependent on him. That hasn't happened in a while.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Kim may be willing to roll the dice, risking travel outside his borders, reducing the risk on a slow-moving heavily fortified train. A shade of army green on the outside, luxuriously appointed on the inside. The train is a symbol of three generations of the Kim family dynasty, and a nation stuck in the past.

The need to travel overland means the meeting would likely be in Russia's far east, Vladivostok. Kim has taken his chugging locomotive to Vladivost before, meeting with Putin there in 2019. This time, Kim may hope Russia will help him with oil supplies, or even technology to use in his own ambitious ballistic missile program, goals perhaps worthy of a rare venture beyond his nation's hermetically sealed borders.

Only once has Kim boarded a flight overseas. He borrowed an Air China jet from Beijing to get to his first Singapore meeting with Donald Trump. So much has changed since those bygone days of U.S. North Korea diplomacy. Now, Russia is ready to make a deal, making Kim perhaps the most powerful North Korean leader ever. Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

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VAUSE: And joining us now, Jill Dougherty, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, CNN contributor, and former CNN bureau chief in Moscow, and as well as Hong Kong. It's good to see you, Jill, it's been a while.

JILL DOUGHERTY, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY; Hey, John.

VAUSE: Okay, so while Vladimir Putin may turn to North Korea for ammunition, it seems he may be looking for manpower from Cuba. Here's a part of a report from CNN's Patrick Oppmann, in HAVANA.

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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Cuban government says it has detected and is attempting to neutralize what it calls a human trafficking network attempting to recruit Cubans to fight Russia's war with Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: So, is recruiting troops from Cuba a better option, politically, for Putin, rather than, what, another unpopular call up on troop mobilization at home? Are we at that point now?

DOUGHERTY: I think that's definitely a factor, because, you know, we've seen the Kremlin over the period of this entire war come to the point where it felt that it really needed to get more people, and that would mean a general mobilization. But as soon as they got close to the word mobilization, people fled the country.

Now, it's become much more difficult to leave the country. It's much more difficult to get out of being drafted. So that is a factor, but they need people. And they have made it clear that they're trying to get more. So, I think, you know, Cuba has always been obviously very friendly, has good relations, let's say, with Russia.

It needs Russia right now in an economic sense. So that -- it's a place where you might begin to think there would be people who, number one, need money to work, and then you recruit them if this is the way it seems to have worked, recruit them to have a job like in construction. And then when they get to Moscow, they're given a uniform and sent or told that they should go to the front. VAUSE: And what they're signing up for, here's an example from the Reuters News Agency, which has reporting on phone conversations. This took place in July, conversations between Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine and remained at home. And they're intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence. One soldier says to his wife, they're effing us up.

No effing ammunition. Nothing. Shall we use our fingers as bayonets? Another tells his mother, just imagine, thrown on the front lines with no equipment, nothing. Everyone's scared. The generals couldn't care less. So, there's that side of it. But then also there is the effect of the war on just the general economy.

Bloomberg reports the Ruble has suffered from a deterioration in foreign trade amid a raft of international sanctions over the war in Ukraine. The plunge threatens to exacerbate inflation, eating into living standards ahead of what was meant to be a showcase presidential election.

You know, it seems that this is increasingly becoming a war most Russians didn't sign up for. So does there come a point, much like there was with the Afghanistan invasion by the Soviets, when reality trumps the state propaganda machine?

DOUGHERTY: That's really the question. But I don't think at this point there's really an answer. There's more propaganda today about this way, you know, on every level. Internet, anyway you look, state propaganda.

So, people, you know, it's more difficult to oppose this war at this point, even though that was the old Soviet Union with Afghanistan, still very difficult to come out and say you are against this war. So, I don't know.

I mean, I don't think anybody knows, I don't think even probably President Putin knows that there would be a moment where people just say we've had enough, and we're not going to support this anymore.

VAUSE: Well, I guess it's not just the troops on the frontlines who are being forced to improvise or make do without, there are some bizarre new images which have emerged via satellite which show car tires placed on the top of these huge Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Now, CNN cannot independently verify why the tires were placed on the aircraft. Experts say it could be a crude attempt at not only adding another layer of protection against Ukrainian drones, but also to reduce the aircrafts' detectability, especially at night.

It all seems to paint a picture here, all of this together, of the military struggling, the military under pressure, woefully unprepared. And also a president who seems to be under a lot of pressure as well, and running out of options.

DOUGHERTY: True. However, if you look at the counter offensive by the Ukrainians, they are really encountering very serious fighting, and serious preparation by the Russians. So, you know, this tire report is a little bit bizarre.

But actually, there may be some technical reasons that they're doing it. But I think, you know, Russians at this point are pulling out all the stops. I mean, the economy is militarized. The country is militarized. And I think what you have to draw from this, whether they're doing it, you know, extremely well with a lot of fault, I do think Putin is in it for the long run.

And that is a real problem for Russian citizens who are gonna have to go through all of this. And it's a terrible issue, obviously, for Ukraine, no doubt. But it's a real issue for the world. If this is going to go on, then Putin seems to be intent on carrying it out for a very long time.

VAUSE: Jill, it's always good to have you with us, it's so good to have your insight. And I guess the point here is if Putin's all in, the country is all in, whether they like it or not. Good to have you with us, thank you. A landmark moment for women's soccer in Spain.

When we come back, the team appointing its first female coach. Find out why her predecessor was fired, three guesses. That's ahead. Also, malaria is on the rise because a warmer planet means mosquitoes are going faster and living longer. How about that? So, what can be done? We'll tell you in a moment.

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VAUSE: A U.S. district judge has handed out the toughest sentence yet to a defendant on trial for his role in the January sixth uprising on Capitol Hill. The former leader of the far-right Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was not in Washington on that day, but he was sentenced 22 years in prison for what the judge described as his outside role in the attack.

Prosecutors had sought 33 years in prison. The judge said Tarrio has shown no remorse for his actions. The Spanish women's football team will now be led by the first ever female head coach. She was appointed just hours after her predecessor was fired.

The move comes as part of a major shake up in Spanish football, after the country's football federation chief forcibly kissed a star player after Spain won the Women's World Cup last month. More now from WORLD SPORTS' Patrick Snell.

PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORTS: Well on Tuesday, we learned that Jorge Vilda has been sacked from his role as head coach of Spain's women's team. This amid the ongoing fallout over that unwanted kiss of the now suspended president of the Spanish football federation, Luis Rubiales, gave a player in the aftermath of the Women's World Cup final.

Vilda was the manager who led La Roja to their first ever World Cup triumph recently in Australia. He's gone now and been replaced by former assistant Montse Tome. More on her historic appointment in just a few moments. Now despite Spain's success last month, Vilda's tenure as head coach, he was appointed back in 2015, fair to say it has been hugely controversial.

If we go back to the build up to the World Cup, which saw ongoing unrest between Spain's players, Vilda himself, his coaching staff, and the Spanish federation, it led to 12 of Spain's biggest stars actually missing the World Cup altogether. This amid reports of concerns over training methods and inadequate preparation for matches.

Now, in a statement from Spain's federation on Vilda's departure, leaving in part the federation appreciates his work as the head of the national team and his responsibilities as the maximum sporting figure of the women's national teams, as well as the success he's reaped during his term, crowned with a recent achievement of the World Cup.

And just hours later on Tuesday, Montse Tome officially taking over from him as head coach in a very special piece of history indeed as the 41-year-old now becoming the first ever woman to be appointed manager of Spain's women's team. Tome has served as an assistant coach within vilda's staff since 2018, and helped Spain to the 2023 Women's World Cup title last month.

Tome is a former player, Barcelona among her clubs. She retired from playing in 2012, and we now know she will make her head coaching debut on September the 22nd when Spain faces current world number one Sweden away in a Women's Nations League Match.

Now in other developments, the Spanish Football Federation issuing an apology on Tuesday for Luis Rubiales, for what it called inappropriate conduct at the Women's World Cup final. That apology to the world of football and society as a whole.

All eyes remaining on Rubiales though, who's currently suspended by the sport's world governing body FIFA. He's refusing to resign. He says that kiss was consensual. The player in question, Jenni Hermoso, says otherwise. Back to you.

VAUSE: Patrick, thank you. Dozens of French schoolgirls were sent home Monday for defying a ban on abayas, a long robe often worn by Muslim women. The French education minister says almost 300 girls arrived wearing an abaya.

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Most agreed to change their clothes, but 16 refused. An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with France's highest court against this ban, which is part of a 2004 French law which outlaw the wearing of overtly religious symbols in public schools. Coming up here on CNN, members of ISIS secretly recorded doing their worst. Now evidence for international prosecutors.

CHRIS ENGELS, COMMISSION FOR INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY: As a normal state of affairs, the hospital had CCTV running. The members of the Islamic State didn't realize that this was being recorded in the background, and didn't think too much about it.

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VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. No Islamic terror group has used gruesome brutal propaganda videos as effectively as ISIS. Be it to recruit new Jihadis or to terrorize those who refuse to adhere to their twisted religious beliefs.

But now, video recorded in a hospital in Aleppo without their knowledge. It has exposed their depravity and total lack of humanity, as well as giving international prosecutors concrete evidence to argue for tougher convictions. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has details, and a warning, as you expect, her report contains disturbing and graphic images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Answering the call to unite under one flag. This is the source of our glory.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was an ISIS hallmark. Slick media productions terrorizing the world. It's what they wanted us to see. But not this.

ENGELS: This film is different. This film is Islamic State without Islamic State knowing it was being filmed.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Never before seen video inside the groups headquarters in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 2013, a children's hospital turned into a house of horrors. CCTV video that captures the reality of the Islamic State, where torture was routine.

Hundreds of Syrians were held in this makeshift prison. Many never made it out to tell their stories. Others did, including some western hostages with chilling accounts of what they survived and witnessed.

DIDIER FRANCOIS, FRENCH JOURNALIST: We could hear the Syrian prisoners in the first places where we were detained in the Aleppo hospital for instance. We could see some of them in the corridors. And we could see some people lying in their blood.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): This video is much more than just a snapshot of ISIS's reign of terror.

ENGELS: As a normal state of affairs, the hospital had CCTV running. The members of the Islamic State didn't realize that this was being recorded in the background and didn't think too much about it.

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KARADSHEH (voice-over): And the cameras rolled for months, capturing scenes like this: a captive left hanging in a stressed position, blindfolded detainees marched down the hallway. Here, a fighter laughing as he pushes down the head of a handcuffed and hooded detainee.

These only a few of the clips shared exclusively with CNN by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA).

ENGELS: This is exactly the type of treatment that we've heard about from survivors. Right? What makes this important is, as you see right there, the -- the Islamic State member without a mask on walking down the hall, that's a person that would normally try and hide his face outside.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): We've blurred faces to preserve ongoing investigations and possible future prosecutions.

ENGELS: That's incredible evidence at trial for several of these individuals who have been identified.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): According to Engels, fighters from all over the world, including senior members from Europe and the U.S., were operating in the facility. This video, he says, has already been used to identify a French suspect.

Evidence gathered has long allowed them and law enforcement in various Western countries to identify and track down ISIS members who fled. Before the fall of ISIS's so-called caliphate, CIJA's war crimes investigators worked undercover collecting evidence like this from the battlefields in Syria and Iraq.

ENGELS: It's often the case that domestic law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities have enough evidence to prove that they were a member. What we think is important is that, wherever possible, we're able to prosecute them for the torture, for the kidnapping, for the murder.

(SCREAMING)

KARADSHEH (voice-over): This is not just about the past. ISIS remains a top global security threat.

ENGELS: These are individuals that have already proven that they are a threat. And we don't want to give them the opportunity to decide to go down that path again.

We've had several hundred requests for information. Our law enforcement partners have not at all forgotten about the conflict.

KARADSHEH: Just before dawn on January 17, heavily armed Dutch police descended on the street in the village of Arkel. They raided a house and arrested a man suspected of having been a senior ISIS commander in Syria.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): His arrest in the small, sleepy town where he lived a quiet life with his wife and children shocked the nation. Residents here were reluctant to speak to us about the suspect, identified as Ayham S.

He allegedly operated in Damascus, not Aleppo, so it wasn't the CCTV video that led to his arrest. It was a tip from a Syrian NGO and witness testimony that triggered a years-long Dutch investigation.

(GUNFIRE)

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Sources say he had a long history of extremism in Syria, holding leadership positions first within an al-Qaeda affiliate, and later, ISIS. Ayham S., who rejects the government's accusations, now faces life in prison.

MIRJAM BLOM, LEAD PUBLIC PROSECUTOR: He had a leading position within the terrorist organizations.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Mirjam Blom is the lead public prosecutor on the case. She's charged him with two counts of membership in terror organizations, with the aim to commit war crimes.

BLOM: In order to charge him with separate war crimes, like execution or violent arrest or torture, you need more evidence than indications.

KARADSHEH: So this is ongoing and --

BLOM: We have -- we have investigations still going on, yes.

KARADSHEH: Was he hiding?

BLOM: He was not hiding. He was just living here openly.

People like him and also war criminals like him come to the Netherlands, hiding in the legitimate stream of refugees. And to be able to -- to investigate and prosecute those cases, it's very -- very important aspect in our mission, not to be a safe haven for war criminals.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): The trail of terror ISIS left behind will haunt not only their victims, but those who tormented them.

Jomana Karadsheh, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Now to Kenya, where billions have been pledged for sustainable development on day two of the Africa Climate Summit.

Four billion dollars for clean energy projects in Africa came from the UAE, while the United States committed more than $30 million for supporting climate resilience and food security.

The summit is focused on mobilizing financing for the continent's response to climate change.

And climate change may be linked to an increase in malaria cases in Kenya, possibly because of an evolving type of mosquito. And children are especially vulnerable to the disease.

CNN's Larry Madowo has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARRY MADOWO, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mary and both her sons are in hospital from malaria. Four-year-old Mark (ph) says he's doing better, and so is his big brother, Joseph (ph), who's 12.

[00:35:05]

They keep getting malaria, Mary says, and she can barely afford the treatment.

MARY ACHIENG, MALARIA PATIENT (through translator): Malaria has hit my family hard. In a month, I use about $35 on drugs, and the following month, one of them falls sick yet again.

MADOWO (voice-over): Mary lives in Western Kenya, a hot region, where residents have an especially high risk of malaria. More than 10,000 people die each year from the mosquito-borne disease in this East African nation, but kids are especially vulnerable.

Researchers are collecting mosquitoes here to study how they're evolving. Rising temperatures let them grow faster and live longer.

MADOWO: Why do you come to collect mosquitoes here specifically?

KWOBA CELESTINE, KEMRI RESEARCH PARTNER: The mosquito densities here are very high.

MADOWO (voice-over): They're tracking the full life cycle of mosquitoes to get ahead of this tiny insect before it does even more damage.

MADOWO: This is a typical high malaria zone. It's hot and humid, swampy. Those are rice growing fields back there, a lot of water right next to where people live.

But as temperatures warm across the board, scientists are concerned about malaria causing mosquitoes breeding in new places.

DAMARIS MATOKE-MUHIA, PRINCIPAL RESEARCH SCIENTIST, KEMRI: Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on earth.

MADOWO (voice-over): Damaris Matoke-Muhia has made it her life's work to neutralize the insect that causes malaria, the female Anopheles mosquito, after her brother died of the disease.

Her team of scientists at Kenya's largest research institute is studying mosquito samples from around the country to guide Kenya's response to malaria and how to beat it.

MADOWO: Are we any closer to eradicating malaria?

MATOKE-MUHIA: We were. But with the change of climate, we're seeing more mosquitoes than we were before. We're seeing new species. We are seeing it going to places where we didn't expect before. Then we are taken back to zero.

MADOWO (voice-over): Climate change is helping mosquitoes responsible for transmitting malaria reach colder parts of the continent, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center found, drawing on data going back 120 years.

But heat is also helping mosquitoes live longer and to become infectious sooner, worrying public health officials.

MADOWO: Are you concerned about a resurgence of malaria in your work across the continent?

DR. GITAHI GITHINJI, GROUP CEO, AMREF HEALTH AFRICA: We are concerned that areas that have central imminent malaria are now having malaria. And we are now seeing that, actually, the public health system is not prepared for this resurgence.

MADOWO (voice-over): Malaria is having devastating effects on more people suffering from serious cases. Steve Ngugi says he was sick for nearly three months.

MADOWO: Your malaria was very serious?

STEVE NGUGI, RECOVERED FROM MALARIA: Very, very serious.

MADOWO: Were you afraid you could die?

NGUGI: Of course, yes. Because by the time I reached the hospital, I couldn't even manage to move my head.

MADOWO (voice-over): Ninety-six percent of people who die from malaria are in Africa, the World Health Organization says. As the continent warms faster than the rest of the world, malaria persists, and experts warn it risks spreading into a global threat.

RICHARD MUNANG, CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM COORDINATOR, UNEP AFRICA: What is happening in Africa will gradually see it happen elsewhere. Because with the warming climate, with the changing temperatures, malaria, mosquitoes are migrating to other areas that are conducive for them.

Malaria will displace people. They will migrate to other areas within the continent and out of the continent.

MADOWO (voice-over): Larry Madowo, CNN, Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: When we come back here on CNN, a biohazard emergency at 35,000 feet. The Delta flight forced to make an emergency landing because someone, it seems, forgot their Imodium.

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VAUSE: You know, stuff happens, sometimes a lot of stuff. Sometimes so much stuff happens it runs down the aisle of a transatlantic flight. Like Delta Flight 198 (sic), to be precise, from Atlanta to Barcelona, forced to turn back and make an emergency landing just two hours after takeoff.

Here's how the pilot described the on-board medical emergency to air traffic control.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative. It's just a biohazard issue. You know, we had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane. So, they want us to come back to Atlanta.

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VAUSE: The cabin crew was reportedly unable to contain the biohazard emergency with paper towel and vanilla scented disinfectant.

And after wheels down at Atlanta airport, the Airbus A-350 underwent a very deep clean.

No word if Flight 198 (sic) was No. 2 to land, but all passengers on board, including the one responsible for said biohazard, boarded another plane for Barcelona after an eight-hour delay.

Delta said, in part, "Delta Flight 194 returned to Atlanta following an on-board medical issue. We sincerely apologize to all our customers for the delay and inconvenience."

In other disgusting airline news, two airline -- two Air Canada passers were apparently forced to sit in seats which had been covered in vomit on a flight from Las Vegas to Montreal last month.

In a Facebook post, one passenger said the seats had been -- seats had been hastily cleaned before boarding. And when they both complained about a foul smell and wet seats, they were told by cabin crew they couldn't be moved because it was a full flight.

Adding insult to the vomit, they were apparently ordered to -- by the pilot leave the plane, either voluntarily or be escorted off by security. It seems they chose the latter.

Air Canada has apologized, saying the passengers, quote, "clearly did not receive the standard of care to which they were entitled," which has to be the understatement of the year.

I'm John Vause, back at the top of the hour with more CNN NEWSROOM. But first, WORLD SPORT, after a short break.

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