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CNN International: 52 Dead in Suspected Suicide Attack in Southwest Pakistan; Ukraine Confirms Strike on Russian Electrical Substation; China & Philippines at Odds over Rights to South China Sea; Migrants Describe Journey from Guatemala to Mexico. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 29, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

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MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR NEWSROOM: Hello and welcome to CNN "Newsroom". I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead Pakistan has been hit by two suicide attacks, one in the south and one other in the north of the country. The death toll is rising as rescuers try to help the injured there.

The clock is ticking, U.S. lawmakers are scrambling to find a deal with the U.S. government hurtling towards a shutdown this weekend. And high hopes, high risks for many migrants. The road to America starts much further away than Mexico. CNN follows one group as it heads north.

Investigators in Pakistan are trying to find out who was behind the suspected suicide blasts that claimed at least 52 lives. It happened in the province of Balochistan during a religious procession the region has seen a decade's long insurgency by separatists. So far there's been no claim of responsibility for the explosion.

Meanwhile, four people were killed in a double suicide attack at the mosque in northwestern Pakistan. Let's bring in CNN Sofia Saifi joining us from Islamabad and the target for one of the attacks is believed to have been a policeman.

SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, Max, I mean at the moment there haven't been any more details. There's one police officer who said that there was a policeman who was targeted but generally the actual target of this attack was a religious procession. Today is a public holiday across Pakistan.

It is the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad in the Islamic calendar. It's a day of processions of special prayers, people take out special religious processions across the country from morning to dusk. And it is at one of these processions in the south of the country where a suicide bomber detonated his explosives which is why we're seeing such a high death toll.

We're also being told that there was another double suicide attack actually, in the north of Pakistan in Hangzhou, where a mosque was attacked and a lot of people apparently managed to flee. And there isn't a high death toll. But again, rescue and relief of efforts are still underway.

And this has been a very deadly year for Pakistan in terms of militant attacks. There are many separatist groups that are operating within the country, along with many militant groups as well as Islamist groups. So you've got the Islamic State, which has previously claimed responsibility.

The Pakistani Taliban who have been responsible with previous deadly attacks in the country have come out and said that they have nothing to do with both the attacks either in Mastung in the south of the country and either the mosque that was attacked in the north of the country.

So again, there is a lot of investigation concerning who is behind the attack. That's usually a quick claim of responsibility. But that is not the case at the moment so, a day of mourning and distress across the country on what has been a public holiday and should have been a time of rejoicing, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Sofia in Islamabad, thank you so much for that. Ukraine confirming, what it's calling a successful attack on an electrical substation on a Russian village just across the border. The Regional Governor of Kursk claims a drone strike cause one of the transformers to catch fire.

Sources say the substation was hit because it provided electricity to important Russian military facilities. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., House lawmakers overwhelmingly approved $300 million in new aid Ukraine after Republican leaders removed the funding for a defense spending bill.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen joins me now live from Eastern Ukraine. And it almost feels like we're into this season of energy installations being attacked.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think you're absolutely right. That's certainly something that we've been seeing over the past couple of weeks, really, as we've been here around the country is the Russians, apparently once again increasingly targeting some of these energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.

In fact, overnight, there was a strike on a place in Mykolaiv around Mykolaiv. With the Ukrainian say the critical infrastructure was targeted there. It's unclear whether or not the Russians actually caused any damage there. The Ukrainians are saying there was a bushfire with some grass on fire that happened as a result.

But certainly, it's something that we have seen that as the Ukrainians move towards what they call heating season when a lot of the central heating gets turned on here in this country for the winter that the Russians have increasingly been targeting those facilities that is something that Kyiv says. But now we have this interesting new case here with that strike in the Kursk region, which, as you noted, is right across the border from Ukraine, where Ukrainian sources are now also saying that they struck an energy facility there and that they caused a power outage there.

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The interesting thing is that a source also telling CNN, that if the Russians as far as the Ukrainians are concerned if the Russians continue to strike those energy infrastructure facilities that the Ukrainians will now respond in kind, and that certainly is somewhat of a threat coming from the Ukrainians.

But also shows the fact that the Ukrainian certainly has increased and improve their long distance strike capabilities against targets inside Russia. A lot of that has to do with drones and the amount of drones, the quality of drones that the Ukrainians have developed themselves.

Or have purchased internationally or have gotten from some of their international partners. Certainly, we can see that over the past couple of months that Ukrainians have been capable of striking targets that are further away from the front lines and further away from a Ukrainian territory.

Like, for instance, in Moscow, like for instance, some other regions inside Russia as well. So certainly a threat coming from the Ukrainians that if the Russians do what they did last winter, which was essentially trying to freeze Ukraine into submission. This time, they're going to get it back from the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainians now believe they have the capability to hurt the energy grid and Russia as well, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Fred, thank you. Slovakia going to the polls on Saturday in an election that's causing concern in the West, the NATO country has been a staunch ally of Ukraine, but this could change if Former Prime Minister Robert Fico returns to power. His opposition party is leading in the polls and the Kremlin sympathizer, especially to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv.

According to one survey, only 40 percent of Slovaks believe that Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine and 50 percent believe the U.S. is a security threat. CNN's Scott McLean is tracking the story joins us now. I mean, this guy is been Prime Minister twice before to explain what's going on in the chaotic world of Slovakian politics.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Slovakia is a small country, but it's not unimportant. It's an EU member, it's a NATO member of borders, Ukraine, and it's been sending helicopters, howitzers, air defense systems, you name it to Ukraine, but as you said, maybe not for long.

And it's all because of this man named Robert Fico. He is a known quantity, as you pointed out in this country. He's been Prime Minister twice before and he's also openly sympathetic to Moscow. He says that the reason that there's war is because Ukrainian Nazis and fascists in his words provoked Russia into war.

And his view is that sending more weapons into Ukraine only prolongs this conflict. And so if he gets into office, he says he won't send any more now he wouldn't also send them to Moscow. He's sort of framing all of this as a Peace Initiative. And all of this looks pretty appealing to slow Slovaks, who right now, like much of Europe are going through a cost of living crisis.

They have rising energy costs, inflation, and also the country has taken in 100,000, Ukrainian refugees, and a country of only 5.5 million, that's a lot. And so all of this taken together is sort of straining the public purse and making peace look pretty good right now. No matter how you have to get there.

What I find especially fascinating, though, about Robert Fico is that he was actually forced out of office back in 2018, after the killing of a journalist and his fiancee who was investigating corruption linked to, you know, elites in the country, some with links to Fico's own party. How do you come back from that?

FOSTER: Yes.

MCLEAN: Well, because of sort of all of the, you know, political chaos over the last few years, COVID, etcetera. Suddenly, he's been able to revamp his image and come back as the front runner now.

FOSTER: This is the sign of stability in a way.

MCLEAN: Yes, in some ways.

FOSTER: OK. Thank you so much, Scott. The most powerful Republican in the U.S. Congress faces a difficult decision. It now looks like the only way House Speaker Kevin McCarthy can avert a government shutdown is to work with Democrats to get a spending bill pass.

But if he does, he's likely to be removed from the speakership by rebellious hardliners in his own party. On Friday, McCarthy will try to get a stopgap spending bill through Congress, though he likely lacks the votes in his own party to pass it. The House and Senate must both pass spending measures by Saturday to avoid a shutdown.

Let's get to CNN Congressional Correspondent Lauren Fox for the latest. He really does look like he's in the corner.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Speaker McCarthy trying this last hail-mary to rally his Republican members around a Republican short term spending bill to avoid this shutdown. But even if it passed, and every indication we have right now is it will not.

It would still face long odds in the United States Senate because of border provisions that are included in that short term Republican bill, as well as the spending levels which are just far too low for Democrats to accept in the Senate. That means we are likely on track for a government shutdown and some of the drama you may see today around 11:30. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will try to bring this short term bill to the floor of the house we expect that the potential is that the rule which is a procedural step could actually fail.

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That means they couldn't even get onto the bill to actually vote on it. This has been one way that hardliners have been trying to put McCarthy on notice basically warning him. We don't support this procedural step and therefore don't support the underlying bill. And as you noted, McCarthy is definitely facing a rebellion on his right flank.

It may not even be if he works with Democrats he gets ousted. Every indication is that Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who has been threatening to House the Speaker for weeks now that he could move as soon as next week on this potentially.

But again, there are questions about what Democrats would do in that situation if they would try to help save McCarthy if they would try to work out of grand bargain to try to keep McCarthy in the speakership. Conservatives and hardliners, they're facing a problem of their own even if they get rid of McCarthy, who do they want to replace him?

They've -- a couple of names, but one of them the Republican WHIP Tom Emmer told our colleagues last night, he was not interested in the job. So you can see here House Republicans between a rock and a hard place, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Lauren, on Capitol Hill, thank you so much. Still to come, the Philippine Defense Secretary accuses China of acting like a schoolyard bully, as tensions mount over the hotly contested South China Sea, details next.

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FOSTER: As tensions flare in the South China Sea the Philippines Defense Chief accuses China of bullying the Philippines during an exclusive interview with CNN. But issue is the maritime rights to the area. China has laid claim to much of the sea and recently went so far as to put a floating barrier in the water.

The Philippines say is people have been fishing those waters for hundreds of years. Just this week cut China's barrier. It happened in the southeastern portion of the sea. The Philippines call the Scarborough Shoal, a small but strategic reef that is also a fertile fishing ground. Ivan Watson joins us from Manila with a closer look at the territorial dispute, Ivan?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Max, this is a long simmering maritime dispute between the Philippines and China heat has heated up in recent months, as the Philippine Government has scrapped a policy of accommodation with China and instead gotten much more assertive about its rights and it's ending up in a kind of David versus Goliath confrontation in the South China Sea. Now I had this exclusive sit down interview with the Philippine Secretary of National Defense and he conceded that the Philippines its fellow Southeast Asian nations are not exactly providing 100 percent of their support to the Philippines in this dispute with this much larger power.

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GILBERTO TEODORO JR., PHILIPPINES NATIONAL DEFENSE SECRETARY: These countries see too though they need China, they need Russia.

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They see that they too may become a victim of bullying of China again because if they close off the South China Sea perhaps the next target will be the Straits of Malacca and then the Indian Ocean.

WATSON: Is that how you feel as if China is bullying you?

TEODORO: Oh, you bet. I would not. I cannot think of any clearer case of bullying than this. It's not a question of stealing your lunch money. But it's really a question of stealing your lunch bag, your chair and even enrollment in the school.

WATSON: The 10 dash line is China's claim that it controls and owns virtually all of the South China Sea.

TEODORO: Yes.

WATSON: Irrespective of competing claims from countries like the Philippines.

TEODORO: Right that is the unilateral declaration by China that it owns the South China Sea basically.

WATSON: Almost the coast of the Philippines.

TEODORO: But here that is a claim which the whole world perhaps rejects. Some don't say it out loud. But as soon as China begins to visibly assert their squeeze over the South China Sea then the whole world will react, why because it will choke one of the most vital supply chain waterways in the whole world.

WATSON: What are the kinds of measures that you have seen the Chinese authorities using to try to keep your vessels out of these contested areas?

TEODORO: Well, shadowing, harassment, dangerous maneuvers, water cabling, and military grade lasers being used on the vessels. These are some of the tactics that they use. But also, we know that they're engaging in a very expansive, in an expansive rather propaganda war with us.

WATSON: Is the Philippines acting upon the behest of its treaty ally, the U.S.?

TEODORO: No, no.

WATSON: That's what China says.

TEODORO: Yes. And that's what they don't understand that they are distancing them from the Filipino people, when they say that and we're going to stand up more because it's an insult to our integrity, an insult to our intellect and an insult to our common sense.

WATSON: To suggest that your American puppets?

TEODORO: Yes.

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WATSON (on camera): Now, the Philippines have made it clear that China has vastly more resources when it comes to this territorial dispute. For example, the Philippines only really have two or three coastguard patrol boats that they say are capable of moving the distance of more than 100 nautical miles to one of these Shoals.

Scarborough Shoals, which is some 500 plus nautical miles from Mainland, China. China, meanwhile, it boasts the largest Navy in the world that said the Philippines government it says it is embarking on a transparency initiative. It says it's going to reveal, continue revealing China's tactics out at sea.

And as an example, it pulled out the Coast Guard, an anchor that was seized from China this week at Scarborough Shoal that they severed from this barrier that the Chinese Coast Guard had erected and kind of waved it around in front of the press today here in Manila, almost as a trophy and as symbol.

The spokesperson for the Coast Guard said that the Philippines will not surrender a single square inch of territory to any foreign power, Max.

FOSTER: Philippines have become very close to America, haven't they? So just explain how this might affect tensions with the U.S. and China?

WATSON: Well, in fact, the Philippines and the U.S. have had a mutual defense treaty, Max, since for some 72 years since 1951. But the two militaries are expanding their defense co-operation. The U.S. military is being provided access to additional locations across this country and additional investment in facilities on the ground also conducting joint up patrols sailing through the South China Sea.

Now what that does, though, is potentially raises the stakes if things were to escalate and spin out of control. Washington has repeatedly said that, under this mutual defense treaty and attack on any Philippine ship or aircraft would require some kind of response from the U.S., if Manila called on it.

So the stakes would only be escalated even higher if something untoward were to happen out on the high seas. FOSTER: OK, Ivan Watson, thank you for bringing that from Manila. Well, up next, a remarkable journey. A CNN -- join migrants making the perilous trek from Central and South America to the United States, their story coming up.

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FOSTER: Thousands of people have been fleeing their homes in Central and South America in search of a better life. Their final goal is the United States but the road is long. And it's hard CNN's David Culver joins them on the difficult journey and heard their stories.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They stick together throughout, no one left behind from falls to steep climbs

CULVER: A lot of young children, so some of them are just basically being carried up.

CULVER (voice-over): To dead ends.

CULVER: They started go the wrong way for the moment. And now they're backtracking a little bit.

CULVER (voice-over): Setback after setback.

CULVER: He's saying that they pay, promised another pickup on the other side. But it seems like that driver just took off with their money.

CULVER (voice-over): This just part of a day's journey for these migrants that day that started not here in southern Mexico but across the Suchiate river in Guatemala. With passport stamped we take the official land crossing, stepping into a vibrant Dakota man. In the State of the Town Square, we need two families from Venezuela traveling as one.

CULVER: They are saying they're ready to cross.

CULVER (voice-over): They welcome us to join. 15 minute stroll to the river after 18 grueling days on the road. Jamie Ned Rodriguez tells me it's been costly.

CULVER: She says like going through the jungle is like dealing with the mafia. She says you have to pay in order to leave and they had to pay $250 a person.

CULVER (voice-over): As they arrive at the river, another expense the crossing. Meanwhile, we go back to the Mexico side using the official entry and hop onto a raft.

CULVER: We're waiting for the two families that we met to make their way across and they're about to board a raft and meet us in the middle as they cross illegally to Mexico.

CULVER (voice-over): They're wrapped drifts over the border and we meet again in Mexico.

CULVER: They saying they're ahead into the land of opportunity.

CULVER (voice-over): Migrant children scramble to help tug them to shore they step off and into through that Evangel a small border town. It allows for just a moment of joy, if only for the kids, their goal tonight that by July to get Mexican transit documents. They learn it's not as close as they'd hoped, 20 miles normally an hour's drive. But there's a catch.

CULVER: They're getting on right now.

CULVER (voice-over): Because they never entered Mexico legally. They need to avoid the multiple migration checkpoints. Otherwise the Mexican drivers could be accused of smuggling. Every crevice of the van filled then they're off on the road for only about 10 minutes.

We watch as they pull over just before the first checkpoint everyone out. They walk the direction they think they're supposed to head.

CULVER: They tell they're basically just trying to figure out their way as they go. They have no real guide they were told some general instructions. And now they're just trying to figure it out.

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CULVER (voice-over): Weaving through brush and high grass up in downhills. They skirt around the first migration checkpoint but on the other side the same driver who they paid to wait for them has taken off.

CULVER: So they're trying to figure out and get another van or they keep walking. Looks like for now they're just going to keep walking.

CULVER (voice-over): A few minutes past another van pulls up. 15 minutes later another stop another checkpoint walk around 30 minutes after that yet another. This one takes them on a bridge directly over the migration checkpoint. Back on the van they go. Before sunset, they make it Tapachula.

Relieved, sure, also overwhelmed thinking about the unknown to head but determined to keep moving north, smiling and waving. We'll see you later, they tell us. David Culver CNN Tapachula, Mexico.

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FOSTER: Sycamore tree this stood for more than 200 years in northern England has been destroyed. This is what's left at the landmark which is located on the ancient Roman built Hadrian's Wall. The tree was cut down in what authorities are calling an act of vandalism.

They say a 16 year old is under arrest. National Park officials say it's a blow because so many memories are linked to the tree called the Sycamore Gap. It was one of the most photographed trees in England and even played a role in the Kevin Costner movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN "Newsroom", I'm Max Foster in London. "World Sport" with Amanda Davies is next.

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