Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

CNN International: Zelenskyy: 12 People Killed in Russian Attack on Odessa; Thousands Pay Tribute at Dissident's Grave for Third Day; Ghana's Parliament passes Anti-LGBTQ+ Bill; Singapore Culture Minister Denies Rumors on Swift Concert Grant; Caitlin Clark Eclipses U.S. College Basketball Record. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 04, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, here are our top stories today.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is set to sit down with Israeli War Cabinet member Betty Gantz in the coming hours. The meeting comes amid an urgent U.S. push for more humanitarian aid in the temporary ceasefire in Gaza.

Later today, lawmakers in France are expected to vote on adding abortion rights to the country's constitution. The measure is widely expected to pass. French President Emmanuel Macron scheduled the special congress at the Palace of Versailles. Women's rights groups are planning to gather in Paris to watch the vote on a giant screen. Anti-abortion activists have scheduled a protest ahead of the vote.

A volcano and an uninhabited part of Ecuador's Galapagos Islands is erupting, spewing lava into the night sky. The eruption started late on Saturday, but the government says there's no threat to visitors to the island. But geologists believe this eruption will be more powerful than previous ones in recent years.

Ukraine's president says defense forces have shot down seven Russian military aircraft in the past week alone, and 15 over the month of February. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is launching aerial attacks meant to kill as Ukraine's defense forces struggle with a significant shortage of artillery. He's pleading for U.S. military aid now.

Meanwhile, six people were injured in a Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine on Sunday. This police video shows a heavily damaged school in one of the towns that was hit.

President Zelenskyy says 12 people have now died from a Russian drone attack in Odessa overnight on Friday. He says rescuers spent all day on Sunday digging through the rubble, recovering bodies and searching for survivors. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh shows us the aftermath.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The death toll in Odessa continues to rise. And it's worth just pausing a moment and naming the children killed by what some officials suggest may be debris from drones being taken out of the sky but is still the consequence of the relentless drone and aerial strikes against civilian targets in Ukraine that seem to happen almost every single night.

Timofey was four months old. Mark would have been three Sunday, today, had he lived to see that moment. And we're now hearing of a 10-year- old also killed during these attacks.

Now, all of this, the backdrop to an urgent situation here on the eastern front lines. We've been seeing ourselves the intensity of the fighting around some of these front-line towns. Remember, this all started with the Ukrainian decision to pull out of Avdiivka two weekends ago.

That said, it was planned, but it appears that their departure and their defensive lines were less well planned from what we're hearing. Now, certainly, that was evident in the three villages to the west of Avdiivka, which Ukraine initially said were never part of their defensive plan. They were given up quite fast, but now the areas that they said they would hold as part of those new defensive lines, they're severely under threat.

And there are some Russian bloggers suggesting that Russian forces are quite deep into some of these villages, that they're not that particularly consequential themselves. But what is consequential is the idea that Ukraine said it would hold the line at a certain place and has not been able to do that.

And we've heard internal criticism here from soldiers on the front line. There's been a lot of it in social media, too, that essentially Ukraine didn't prepare for the possibility of having to fall back in the way that it should have. Some of that might have been reflected in some, I think, strange, different comments we've heard from Oleksandr Syrskyi, the new military commander in Ukraine, in the job three weeks. He's now, since Thursday, berated his staff for essentially not being up to the job of commanding some of these forces in the Avdiivka area.

He says he even made some personnel replacements. He's praised some staff and some personnel on the ground as well. But it is odd to hear a commander point the finger quite like that at a moment as desperate as this.

[04:35:00]

It is desperate because a lot of the forces we talked to say they're running out of ammunition. We were with a tank unit who yesterday and this day simply did not have enough rounds to fire as much as they would normally have expected to. That is extraordinary because in the area they were with, there was a battle ranging.

And so these villages under increased pressure are leaving many worried that we might be seeing Russia moving forwards past Ukraine's expectations of what it could do to defend its territory and then possibly a change in the dynamic on the battlefield. Too early to tell right now. But things are absolutely not what Ukraine hoped they would be on the battlefield.

They're certainly not what they hoped they would be in terms of supply and assistance from the West. And it begins to feel as though Russia has the capacity to move forwards. Videos of their assaults show them exceptionally callous about the use of their troops, very blunt and clumsy in their tactics, but still relentless and apparently moving forwards even though it's meter by meter.

So a troubling time we're seeing here certainly and I think a feeling amongst the Ukrainian front lines that things are really not good and it's not quite clear how long they can keep the status quo as it is.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Tributes still pouring in for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny two days after he was laid to rest. Hundreds of mourners flocked to his grave in Moscow on Sunday with many laying flowers.

Navalny died last month in a Siberian prison sparking accusations that he had been murdered. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death. The outpouring of support comes as Vladimir Putin is set to secure another six-year term in an election with no real competition.

For more, let's go to CNN's Sebastian Shukla. He joins us from Berlin. It really does show the amount of support he had in the country.

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN PRODUCER: Yes, it does, Max, and people have continued to file past the coffin, laying flowers and those images that you just saw. Somewhere underneath those petals is Alexei Navalny's body. But the one thing you mentioned, Max, is we have not heard at all from the Kremlin referencing the funeral or offering any condolences from the Kremlin at all.

That's not different. We don't -- It's very expected and is very much within the Kremlin playbook.

And in the last few minutes, we've heard from Dmitry Peskov, again, President Putin's spokesperson, who has said: We haven't said much on the topic and we believe that we won't have anything more to say.

The messaging from the Kremlin here, Max, is it's really clear they are aware of an election coming up for them where they will be -- President Putin will be looking to secure another term in office. And I think that they don't want to rock the boat at the moment. They don't want to draw any more eyes towards Alexei Navalny's final resting place than is completely necessary. They feel that they have allowed people to get some steam off their chest, but they haven't broadcast it on state TV or anywhere within Russia of any particular note.

But within all of this, there is the key message, though, from the people of Russia, that despite the oppression that Vladimir Putin has put on his own people, not being able to say goodbye properly to Alexei Navalny, detaining people in the days after he was arrested, not being able to speak out openly and critically against the war, that within all of this, there is a subliminal message beneath that -- metaphorically within that mountain of flowers, that you may be able to take the opposition figure away from people, but his message and what he stood for will continue to be there -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Sebastian in Berlin, thank you so much for that.

The German ambassador to Moscow has been summoned to the Russian foreign ministry, a Russian state news agency reported a bit earlier. The summons is in response to a leaked conversation between top- ranking Air Force officers discussing a possible transfer of long- range Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

The conversation was posted online last week by the head of Russia's state broadcaster. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the timing of the leak and the quick reaction suggested a certain, quote, choreography that he suspects is part of a Russian campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS PISTORIUS, GERMAN MINISTER OF DEFENCE (through translator): The incident is clearly more than just the interception and publication of a conversation within the Air Force.

It is part of an information war that Putin is waging. There is no doubt about that. It is a hybrid attack aimed at disinformation.

It's about division. It's about undermining our unity. And accordingly, we should react to it with particular prudence, but no less determinedly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Officials say the leak will be investigated intensively and quickly.

South Korea's government says it'll crack down on doctors who are ignoring orders to return to work. For nearly two weeks, thousands of doctors have been striking for better working conditions and better pay.

[04:40:00]

They're also protesting against the government's plan to increase medical school admissions, saying that won't solve their most critical problems.

The strike has left hospitals and health care centers in a lurch. Officials say they'll begin inspecting hospitals and suspending licenses for junior doctors who continue to strike.

The U.N. Human Rights Chief is calling Ghana's brand-new anti- homosexuality bill profoundly disturbing. The measure made it through Ghana's parliament last week, it still needs presidential approval before it becomes law.

The controversial bill criminalizes LGBTQ relationships, along with non-traditional gender identities and those who simply support LGBTQ rights.

CNN's David McKenzie has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ghanaian artist Angel Maxine fought the homophobic bill with what she knew best. Now as Ghana's most famous trans singer, she says she lives in fear, gets death threats from the public eye.

MAXINE ANGEL OPOKU, MUSICIAN: I -- I am -- I'm scared. I'm really scared.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Ghana's parliament has unanimously passed a draconian anti-LGBT bill. It calls full jail time for Ghanaians identifying as gay or trans, criminalizes those who support them, requires citizens to turn them in.

OPOKU: I'm heartbroken. I feel so bad. I feel bad because we have to work so hard to speak up against it.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Since 2021, the so-called family values bill has been pushed by a coalition of politicians and faith leaders in Ghana with support from U.S. conservative groups. It's just one of several homophobic bills emerging in Africa.

CNN has tracked a severe spike in the abuse of LGBTQ Africans often put on social media, an epidemic of hate inspired by the laws.

SAM GEORGE, GHANAIAN OPPOSITION MP: There is nothing that deals with LGBTQ better than this bill that has just been passed by parliament. We expect the president to walk his talk and be a man of his words.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): After the unanimous vote, President Nana Akufo- Addo, a former human rights lawyer, will be under enormous political pressure to sign the bill.

But his government is a significant recipient of U.S. and European foreign aid.

And Ghana has been on a push to draw foreign tourists to its shores with flashy advertising like this. It's been a hugely successful campaign, especially with Americans. But it could all be under threat. And Maxine says she's almost out of hope for their future.

OPOKU: I won't allow my identity to be criminalized. And I'll still speak against it.

MCKENZIE: But you could be sent to prison.

OPOKU: Yes, I could be sent to prison. That little time that we have right now, we have to speak against it.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Otherwise, Maxine and many others will be silenced.

David McKenzie, CNN, Johannesburg.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, still to come, Singapore pushes back over rumors about how they secured their own set of concerts from Taylor Swift. We'll have the latest in a live report.

And she's just shot her way into the history books. Ahead, U.S. college basketball star Caitlin Clark eclipses a decades-old record for both women and men. A look at that incredible moment coming up.

[04:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Thousands of Taylor Swift fans will be heading to Singapore in the coming days, just hoping to hear her perform hits like Antihero in her sold-out shows. But this latest stop of her Eras tour isn't without controversy, as Kristie's been finding out -- Kristie.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there has been controversy, because perhaps it's Eras tour envy, not quite bad blood. Neighboring Asian countries in the region, they're upset because of the talk out there, the allegations that Singapore paid up to U.S.$3 million a show to get an exclusive deal to bring Taylor Swift and her Eras tour to Singapore.

Today we heard from Singapore's culture minister who addressed the Singaporean parliament on the controversy, and he said that the grant is not as high as speculated.

Now, there is a timeline to this story, so let's take you back to what happened last week. So a lawmaker in the Philippines called on his country to put the pressure on Singapore for an explanation behind these grants. And this is what we heard from Joey Salceda.

He said, quote: This is not what good neighbors do. And he goes on to say: It was at the expense of neighboring countries which could not attract their own foreign concertgoers and whose fans had to go to Singapore, unquote.

So anger among lawmakers in the Philippines, but allegations also made earlier in Thailand. In fact, from the very top, from the prime minister of Thailand who spoke out at a business forum in Bangkok mid- February. And he was the one who made that allegation. He said that Singapore paid Taylor Swift up to $3 million a show allegedly on condition of exclusivity rights of a Singapore-only arrangement in Southeast Asia.

And Salceda also added this comment.

He said, quote: If I'd known this, I would have brought the shows to Thailand, unquote.

Now, we did reach out to Taylor Swift's concert promoter, and we are still awaiting comment from them. But we did hear from Singapore. And Singapore said, yes, it did grant Taylor Swift a grant to perform there, but it did not confirm the exclusivity arrangement. And today, its culture minister made new comments about the grant. Let's bring it up. This is what Edwin Tong said.

He said: There have been some online speculation as to the size of the grant. I can say that it is not accurate and not anywhere as high as speculated, unquote.

Also, he cited confidentiality reasons. That was the reason why he couldn't reveal the size of the grant or the conditions of the grant.

Now, this week is the big tour happening in Singapore, the last leg of her Asia tour. Taylor Swift is playing six sold-out nights to some 300,000 fans there in Singapore, again, her only stop in Southeast Asia.

So Singapore is getting a huge economic boost here. So huge, in fact, according to one economist at Maybank, he estimates that 7 in 10 concertgoers are coming into Singapore from overseas and that they're spending up to U.S. $370 million in Singapore on hotels, food and entertainment. Back to you, Max.

FOSTER: You've probably got a couple of hats on this, haven't you, Kristie? You've got a parent hat, but you've also got a business expert hat. She can't go to every country, and surely these sorts of deals are done all the time, aren't they? I mean, it's a commercial business.

STOUT: Yes, absolutely. In fact, grants were also given, believe it or not, here in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government offered and used a $2 million grant to bring Lionel Messi and his Inter-Miami team to come here to Hong Kong over a month ago for a pre-season friendly. We know how that turned out. It ultimately turned into a PR disaster.

But Singapore, using grant money, the exclusivity arrangement still not clear, the amount of money also still not clear. They're not revealing that data, but they did manage to bring in Taylor Swift for what appears to be an exclusive arrangement, the only Southeast Asian stop on her Asia tour. And you have hundreds of thousands of fans, seven out of ten coming in from outside Singapore, bringing in all their money and all their love for Taylor Swift to the Lion City -- Max.

FOSTER: Good luck booking hotels there.

STOUT: Yes.

FOSTER: Kristie, thank you so much.

The congratulations are already pouring in for U.S. college basketball superstar Caitlin Clark.

[04:50:00]

She's captured an all-time scoring record for both men and women, and we're going to look at how she did it. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 2, 1, ignition.

Engines full power. And liftoff of NASA Crew 8. Go, Falcon. Go, SpaceX ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Well, NASA's latest mission to the International Space Station lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. Three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on board. If all goes to plan, they'll reach the space station on Tuesday and stay there until the end of August. Two earlier launch attempts were scrubbed due to the weather conditions.

American basketball star Caitlin Clark is now the all-time leading scorer in the top rank of college basketball for women and for men. The University of Iowa phenom staked her spot in the history books on Sunday at the free throw line and later reflected on this road to this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Record setter, going to be on a free throw. It is another chart topper for Caitlin Clark as she passes the all-time scoring leader, men or women.

CAITLIN CLARK, GUARD, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: I think just reflecting back over my four years is just, I'm very grateful. Starting playing in front of absolutely no one during COVID and then obviously my sophomore year, we had good crowds. The curtains were down a lot of the games and now it's impossible to get a ticket to get in the door to our games. So, yes.

The people that have made it the most special, obviously my teammates, my coaches, but it isn't what it is without all of you. So seriously, I mean that and I thank you. And this is special.

I don't know if you guys realize what you're doing for women's basketball and women's sports in general, but you're changing it. You're helping us change it. So seriously, from the bottom of my heart, from all of us, we thank you so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Messages of congratulations, of course, pouring in from everywhere. President Joe Biden posting on X that Caitlin Clark has made her school proud. CNN World Sports' Patrick Snell shows us how it all happened and explains why this record is so special.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PATRICK SNELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: Well, as you may well know, university sports and the world of college basketball are a huge deal over here in America. So it's been no surprise. There's been so much attention on the Iowa Hawkeye's Caitlin Clark.

On Sunday, the 22-year-old playing in her last regular season home game against Ohio State at a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Clark needing just 18 points to become the NCAA Division 1 all-time leading scorer in basketball, male or female, and passing the legendary Hall of Famer Pete Maravich in the process.

Well, here would come that historic moment. Clark setting the record with a pair of free throws in the final second of the first half. She would end the game with 35 points, nine assists, and six rebounds. Iowa win it 93-83, giving Caitlin a career total of 3,685 points. Quite extraordinary.

If you had a ticket for this one, you should count yourself very privilege indeed because tickets were the most expensive ever in women's basketball history.

Let's hear now from history-making Caitlin Clark herself.

[04:55:00]

CAITLIN CLARK, GUARD, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA: Everything that's gone on in the past couple of weeks and even the past couple of months, I feel like I'm so focused on helping this team win and be so great that it's like hard for me to wrap my head around everything that's going on. I think I'm just trying to soak in the moment.

A record is a record. I don't want that to be the reason people remember me. I hope people remember me for the way I played with a smile on my face, my competitive fire. Sure, they can remember the wins, but also just like the fun me and my teammates had together.

SNELL: And our congratulations, too. Well, earlier this week, you might remember Clark declared herself eligible for the WNBA draft. So she's going pro and will not return to Iowa. But first up, what she said many, many times, she'd liked to win the national title with the Hawkeyes. So we shall see how that all plays out in the coming weeks.

But Clark's place in history already cemented regardless. And for now, it's right back to you.

(EN VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Thanks to Patrick.

In the spotlight this hour, three decades after releasing his last pop album, Billy Joel is back with a groundbreaking music video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY JOEL, MUSICIAN AND CO-WRITER, "TURN THE LIGHTS BACK ON": Please open the door Nothing is different, we've been here before ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: His newest song, Turn the Lights Back On, uses artificial intelligence to portray younger versions of himself. Joel's looks represent the different periods of his career, like the Piano Man era and the River of Dreams era.

The Piano Man described the emotions he felt whilst watching the video to our Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOEL: Freddy came up to me with this idea of artificial intelligence. And I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I did the recording, the video, and when I saw it, it was kind of an out-of-body experience.

I saw myself, you know, going through time, and it was very moving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: An underwater exploration of the coast of Chile has led to the discovery of more than 100 new sea creatures, would you believe, like this one. This is video from the Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition.

Scientists identified deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins and squat lobsters. The discoveries were all in an underwater mountain chain that stretches from Chile to Easter Island, would you believe.

On land, there's another creature to tell you about, the Paris Zoo welcomed a three-year-old white rhino over the weekend. Her name is Dora, and she weighs nearly 1.5 tons. The addition of Dora is part of an international conservation effort. She joins two male rhinos currently at the zoo.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. CNN "THIS MORNING" with Kasie is up next after this quick break.

[05:00:00]