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CNN International: Doctor: No Evidence McConnell Experienced Seizure or Stroke; Billions of Dollars Pledged for Climate Projects at Africa Climate Summit; ISIS Members Caught on Camera Committing Torture. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired September 06, 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 me bring you up to date with our top stories this hour.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Kyiv right now, meeting with Ukrainian officials. His third trip to the Ukrainian capital since Russia's invasion began.
A new report released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service reveals that this summer is officially the hottest on record by a significant margin.
NOBILO: The attending physician at the U.S. Capitol says there's no evidence that Mitch McConnell has a seizure disorder or that he experienced a stroke or a movement disorder. The new letter was released by the Senate Republican leader's office Tuesday after the 81-year-old had two recent health scares in front of TV cameras. Despite reassurances, some Republican Senators say they're concerned if McConnell is fit to continue leading the party. CNN's Manu Raju reports from Washington.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, expected to go behind closed doors with the full Republican Conference on Wednesday for the first-time detailing what happened when he froze before cameras last week in Covington, Kentucky, and also in July when that also occurred. That actually happened right before the Senate adjourned for a five-week recess.
They are now back in session and there are a lot of questions. In fact, one Senator Josh Hawley told me on Tuesday evening, that this question about McConnell's had been traveling -- had been coming to him everywhere when he traveled across the state in Missouri over his -- over the recess. And that these Senators also want answers.
Now McConnell's office initially chalked this up to lightheadedness, saying that he had experienced some lightheadedness and that's why he had frozen. And there's still some concerns about whether or not he is still suffering from the after effects of the concussion that he endured back in March when he fell. He hit his head at a Washington hotel.
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But in an effort to try to alleviate those concerns, McConnell, from the after effects of the concussion that he endured back in March when he fell, he hit his head at a Washington hotel. But in an effort to sort of alleviate those concerns, McConnell's office released a letter from the Capitol Hill physician saying he did not suffer any major issues, no stroke, no seizure. There was not -- he does not have Parkinson's disease. And they said that his brain scans and other tests that were taken suggests that he can continue to do his job.
Now that doesn't mean that all Senators are OK with what they've heard. Some want more answers. Including Senator Rand Paul, who is skeptical of what Senator McConnell's office has said about lightheadedness contributing to this issue. As well as -- and Senator Tommy Tuberville, who was uncertain about whether McConnell can continue in the job.
Nevertheless and a positive sign from McConnell. He does have sizable amount of Republican support, including from the three Republicans who could potentially succeed him, Senators John Thune, John Cornyn and John Barrasso, all telling me on Tuesday evening that they continue to support Senator McConnell in his position.
So at the moment no threat to his leadership. The question remains on Capitol Hill whether he will stay for Republican leader, not just beyond this Congress, but in the next Congress, which begins in 2025.
Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.
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FOSTER: U.S. First Lady Jill Biden will continue to be monitored by the White House medical team after she tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday. She's currently isolating at the Biden's home in Delaware with mild symptoms.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden visit -- tested negative again on Tuesday, but will continue to wear a mask. Experts say the first lady should be doing well despite a positive test.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: I think she should be doing really quite well for a number of reasons. One, she's funded -- fundamentally a healthy woman. She has been vaccinated. She's been boosted and she has had a prior infection, as you can recall last summer. Which means she has a hybrid immunity or a good amount of immunity. It didn't prevent her from getting infected, but certainly would go a long way to prevent her from getting severe disease. So although you never can predict, I would imagine very strongly that she should do really quite well.
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FOSTER: Now to Kenya, where the third day of the African Climate Summit is underway. Billions of dollars were pledged for sustainable development on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates pledged more than $4 billion to support clean energy projects on the continent.
NOBILO: While the U.S. committed to an additional $30 million for supporting climate resilience and food security efforts. For more, let's go over to CNN's Larry Madowo, who's at the summit and has been following it very closely all of this week. Larry, is this considered to have been an unqualified success?
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that's what African leaders and the African Union that put it together would say. Especially that $4.5 billion pledge from the United Arab Emirates ahead of their hosting of COP 28 later this year. That's a big one because they've been talking about how much investment is necessary in the renewable energy space on the continent.
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, who spoke here yesterday, said Africa could be a renewable energy superpower because the vast potential exists here. But it's untapped. Over the last two decades, about only two percent of the total global investments have come to the continent despite a huge potential here.
And that's what President William Ruto of Kenya and the other African leaders have come here are trying to tell the rest of the world that there is massive potential here and carbon sinks that exist in the continent, but also in renewable energy such as green hydrogen, and they want the money to come in.
But this is one of just the angles. The big one is around adaptation. Because Africa contributes less than four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions but suffers some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. And they feel that there's been a lot of commitments from the global North about how to pay for that adaptation. To shore up communities that are most affected by this, but the money just hasn't come. And they hope to agree on a common platform into COP 28 to convince the rest of the world why they need to be paying more attention here, and especially where they need to be sending more money to African countries that are suffering the worst effects of the climate crisis.
NOBILO: Larry Madowo in Nairobi. Thank you so much.
Coming up, ISIS has always focused on controlling its narrative wherever possible, but its members have now been caught on camera committing crimes without their knowledge, and prosecutors are paying attention.
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FOSTER: As ISIS worked to spread torture and terror through the Middle East and beyond, the group was also filling social media with propaganda videos, trying to recruit new members to join its so-called Caliphates. But not all video works to the group's advantage.
NOBILO: In Aleppo, ISIS members were being recorded without their knowledge while they're performing their murderous work. That's giving international prosecutors concrete evidence to push for more meaningful convictions. Jomana Karadsheh has the details and a warning to you that her report contains disturbing and graphic video.
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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.
CHRIS ENGELS, COMMISSION FOR INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY: 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 group's 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 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.
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 17th, 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 al 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.
Sources say he had a long history of extremism in Syria, holding leadership positions first within an al-Qaeda affiliate, and later, ISIS. Ayham al S., who rejects the government's accusations, now faces life in prison.
MIRJAM BLOM, PROSECUTOR NETHERLANDS PUBLIC PROSECUTION SERVICE: 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: And 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 there openly. People like him and also war criminals come to the Netherlands, hiding in the legitimate stream of refugees. And to be able 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.
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NOBILO: In the coming hours, the 10th day of the U.S. Open is set to begin play. Defending men's singles champion Carlos Alcaraz will face off against Alexander Zverev. 20-year-old Alcaraz is the current world number one men's tennis player. If you didn't already know.
Today will also feature American Coco Gauff playing doubles. She could potentially make it her first ever U.S. Open final. Gauff is currently the youngest American to reach the open women's singles semifinals since Serena Williams back in 2001.
FOSTER: That's good stuff, isn't it?
The former head coach of Spain's Women's national soccer team calls his firing unfair and unexpected. Jorge Vilda said he believes the complaints about the team's management did not include him. Still, Vilda says he has congratulated Montse Tome on being appointed the first female head coach of the women's team. The move is 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.
I mean, there are lots of people who are very confused about this story, who aren't in in all of the detail. Because what they see is obviously, the president kissing the female football player and he's the coach that's being fired and the coach is the most successful coach they've ever had.
NOBILO: Whereas Rubiales has just been suspended. FOSTER: And yes, and they're investigating, aren't they? There may be
a result, but it seems a bit -- but then there's all these other allegations as well, related to the coach.
NOBILO: Turning to some of the stories in the spotlight this hour. A Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was forced to turn around because a passenger had extreme loose bowel movements all through the airplane on Friday.
FOSTER: It actually read diarrhea, but Bianca couldn't bring herself to say it.
NOBILO: The pilot told air traffic control that it was a biohazard issue.
FOSTER: Indeed, the plane arrived back in Atlanta about two hours after it had left. Delta says the flight later took off after an 8 hour delay and landed in Barcelona late on Saturday. All the other airports said they didn't want it. That's not true. The airline. Issued a statement apologizing to customers for the delay and inconvenience.
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NOBILO: Did you really say incontinence? You did? And apparently the vanilla scented disinfectant was not enough. That was it.
FOSTER: Oh, I imagine. It must have been. But the poor, you know, the real victim of this is the sheer embarrassment of the person at the center of it.
NOBILO: Yes, and also the person who had to read it.
FOSTER: Hurricane Idalia brought more than just rain and wind to the southeastern U.S. Flamingos are now turning up in a number of states as a result of the storm. One expert believes the birds may be flying between Cuba and the Yucatan when they were diverted by Idalia.
NOBILO: Flamingos are native to the Caribbean and other warm climates, including Florida. But they basically went extinct there by the early 1900s because people hunted them for their feathers. One researcher is urging people to enjoy the bird's presence but says to give them space because they have been through a lot.
And I think flamingos have the best collective noun. You know what it is?
FOSTER: No.
FOSTER: A flamboyance --
FOSTER: Really?
NOBILO: -- of flamingos.
The rumors are true. The Rolling Stones are set to announce -- I had an Aussie accent there, sorry -- are set to announce their first new studio album in 18 years. Titled "Hackney Diamonds." It includes songs that the band recorded with late drummer Charlie Watts before his death in 2020.
FOSTER: They are timeless, aren't they? Look at them. Complete rock stars. And Paul McCartney is even featured playing bass on one track. Mick Jagger and company will do an interview with comedian Jimmy Fallon today here in London for the big announcement. Here's a teaser video for that event.
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JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN: This is Jimmy.
MICK JAGGER, SINGER ROLLING STONES: Hello, it's Mick.
FALLON: Mick.
JAGGER: And Keith, Ronnie.
FALLON: Keith, Ronnie!
JAGGER: We in the world-wide live stream.
FALLON: Live stream!
JAGGER: (INAUDIBLE).
FALLON: You need me. Wednesday, September 6th.
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FOSTER: Brilliant, isn't it? That's a huge event actually and hits London tonight.
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. We'll both see you tomorrow.
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