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CNN International: Red Cross: 100 Plus Feared Dead After Papua New Guinea Landslide; China Launches Second Day of Military Drills Around Taiwan; IDF: Bodies of Three Hostages Recovered from Gaza; Ebrahim Raisi Laid to Rest in Holy City of Mashhad; G7 Eyes Russia's Financial Assets Frozen Over Ukraine Invasion; Kenyan President Meet U.S. President. Aired 4:00-4:30a ET
Aired May 24, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): All separatist acts seeking Taiwan independence will be met with a crushing defeat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I will stand on the front line with all the brothers and sisters from the National Army to defend the national peace together.
WILLIAM RUTO, KENYAN PRESIDENT: The responsibility of peace and security is the collective responsibility of all nations and all people believe in freedom.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States has deployed forces in the hemisphere. This raises all kinds of questions.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I love the state. I love the people in the state. I'm running hard in New York. I think we can win New York.
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: A warm welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Max Foster. It's Friday, May the 24th.
It's 9 a.m. here in London, 6 p.m. in Papua New Guinea, where there's breaking news we're following for you this hour. A massive landslide in a remote region of northern Papua New Guinea. The Red Cross says there are more than 100 people feared dead there. And that number is likely to be much higher, of course.
Anna Coren has the latest from Hong Kong -- Anna.
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max, it is now dark where this landslide occurred and emergency crews are still trying to access this remote village in Enga province. It's in the north of the country where, as you say, this landslide occurred. It's believed to have killed more than 100 people, although some experts think that that is a conservative number.
It happened around three o'clock this morning. The village is Kaokalam. It is located near an unused gold mine. It's known as an agricultural area, but this is the highlands of Enga province. As you can see from the pictures and the video, you know, it's part of the hillside that has just slipped down into the valley, you know, flattening houses in its path. One eyewitness told local media that the entire village was gone.
There are images of villagers, you know, trying to find any survivors. Obviously now this is very much a recovery operation. The large boulders, the tree trunks, the collapsed buildings, you know, scattering the earth are making it very difficult to recover those bodies. They will need heavy machinery to move that earth.
The highway, Max, to the area has been cut off, making it inaccessible at the moment for rescue workers to reach this scene. And a Red Cross official told CNN a little earlier that a recent earthquake and heavy rainfall in the area may have been responsible for triggering the deadly landslide.
Let's take a listen.
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JANET PHILEMON, CARETAKER, NATIONAL TREASURER, PAPUA NEW GUINEA RED CROSS: There was a 4.5 earthquake in the area about four days ago, so that could have shaken things up a bit, opened up some cracks. If rain followed, you'd possibly get the weakening. And then sometimes these landslides in those circumstances just happen like this one did overnight with seemingly no cause.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COREN: The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape, he issued a statement. Let me read it to you.
He said: We are sending in disaster officials, PNG Defense Force and the Department of Work and Highways to meet provincial and district officials in Enga and also start relief work, recovery of bodies and reconstruction of infrastructure. I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the landslide disaster.
And, Max, the scale of this destruction is enormous. I mean, we're only going by the videos and photos that we can see. But, you know, speaking to officials who have spoken to residents on the ground, they fear that the death toll will be much higher.
FOSTER: Anna, in Hong Kong, thank you.
Taiwan's new president is being put to the test as China launches another day of large scale military drills around the self-ruling island.
[04:05:00]
The Chinese military claims it's testing its ability to, quote, seize power and occupy key areas only days after the new Taiwanese president took office. Taiwan says dozens of Chinese aircraft, warships and other vessels have been detected in and near the Taiwan Strait.
Meanwhile, Beijing says its fighter jets have been conducting mock strikes against, quote, high value military targets. Earlier, China called the drills a punishment for so-called separatist acts.
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WANG WENBIN, SPOKESMAN, CHINES MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translator): All separatist acts seeking Taiwan independence will be met with a crushing defeat dealt by more than 1.4 billion Chinese people. And all separatist forces for Taiwan independence will have their heads bashed bloody in the face of the historical trend of China's complete reunification.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Taiwan is condemning China's drills as an irrational threat to regional stability and has dispatched its own forces.
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LAI CHING-TE, TAIWANESE PRESIDENT (through translator): I will stand on the front line with all the brothers and sisters from the national army to defend the national peace together. And while facing the external challenges and threats, we will continue to defend the values of democracy, protecting regional peace and stability.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: A senior Biden administration official called Beijing's moves reckless and escalatory. It says the U.S. is monitoring the situation very closely. Let's get more from CNN senior international correspondent Will Ripley reporting from Taipei.
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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A chaotic start for Taiwan's new president, Lai Ching-te, just days after taking office, China launching large-scale military exercises and protesters taking to the streets of the capital Taipei. Operation Joint Sword 2024A set to encircle Taiwan over two days. Dozens of Chinese aircraft, warships and Coast Guard vessels.
Beijing describing the drills as a powerful punishment for so-called separatist forces in Taiwan. A dramatic increase in military pressure on the island democracy.
WEN-TI SUNG, FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL'S GLOBAL CHINA HUB: I think Beijing will likely respond with fire fury. That's almost to be expected from Beijing.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Senior security officials in Taipei tell CNN most of the aircraft crossed into Taiwan's self-declared air defense identification zone, a move the island's defense ministry calls a serious provocation.
SUN LI-FANG, TAIWAN DEFENSE MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: Their military exercise is not helping with the situation around Taiwan Strait.
RIPLEY (voice-over): China's military says: The exercises are a direct response to the separatist provocations and external interferences. They say: The motherland must be reunified and will inevitably be reunified.
In his inauguration speech this week, Lai calling on the communist mainland to stop its military and political intimidation and recognize the sovereignty of democratic Taiwan using the island's official name, the Republic of China.
LAI CHING-TE, TAIWAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I hope that China will face the reality of the Republic of China's existence and respect the choices of the people of Taiwan.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Words seen by some as a departure from the cautious tone taken by his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen.
President Lai's first days have been anything but calm. Massive youth protests erupted outside parliament. Demonstrators protesting a push by opposition parties to subject the island's new leader to tighter scrutiny from China-friendly lawmakers. More chaos inside Taiwan's fiercely divided parliament. A massive brawl broke out last week over those legislative reform bills.
In the Taiwanese capital, confidence in the government and the military.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): If the Chinese Communist Party does attack Taiwan, it won't be easy. Taiwanese people are not afraid of war.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I believe leaders will prioritize people's happiness. So I'm not worried. I think peace will be maintained.
RIPLEY (voice-over): A fragile peace in tumultuous times for President Lai. Military threats across the Taiwan Strait and deep divisions at home.
RIPLEY: So here we are, President Lai Ching-te, less than a week in office and you have military drills happening around Taiwan, protests in the capital, tension in parliament. It is quite a situation. And the people here say they're not necessarily all supporters of the president, but they are supporters of democracy.
And they say Taiwan's democracy is in danger right now. And those drills are enough evidence for the world to see exactly what's happening.
Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: News just into CNN. The Israeli military says it has recovered the bodies of three hostages from Jabalia in Gaza. The IDF says the bodies have been identified and the families notified.
[04:10:00]
Meanwhile, the U.S. is working to get hostage and ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas back on track. A U.S. official tells CNN CIA director Bill Burns will head to Europe in the coming days to try to revive the process.
Aid groups have begun distributing more than 500 metric tons of supplies brought into Gaza across that floating pier built by the U.S. military.
And Israeli forces have taken control of the Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza after a four-day siege. Doctors say the facility is now out of service. It was one of the last functioning hospitals, actually, in the north.
CNN's Ben Wedeman has reported extensively from Gaza over the years, of course. Take us through what we know about these new bodies that have been returned to Israel.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are three males. According to the Israeli military, they were, all three of them, killed on the 7th of October, since basically they were bodies held by Hamas all this time.
Now, we understand that one of them is a 59-year-old dual Israeli- Brazilian citizen, a male. One was a 42-year-old male from Tel Aviv. And the third was a 30-year-old French Mexican citizen. I believe that most of them were at that Nova festival, that music festival, that was the target of some of the Hamas attacks on the 7th of October.
This appears the -- basically, the Israeli military hasn't been able to free any live hostages now for quite some time. Now, William Burns, the head of the CIA, is coming to Europe to try to get the talks going again. They fell apart at the beginning of May, when there was some confusion about Egyptian offers accepted by Hamas for exchange of hostages for a ceasefire.
But now they're trying again to get that to work. But certainly what we've seen is that, you know, we're now in May, the last time there was any proper release of hostages in exchange for a period of relative quiet, and the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees was back in November, the end of November last year. And since then, there have been -- there's been much back and forth involving the Americans, the Qataris, the Egyptians, the Israelis and others. But until now, it has not borne any fruit -- Max.
FOSTER: OK, Ben in Rome, thank you.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being invited by Republican leaders to address the U.S. Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson says he extended the invite to the prime minister, and the two are coordinating on a date.
Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, who worked with Johnson to set up the joint address, told CNN's Manu Raju he considered it important for Congress to hear from the Israeli leader.
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REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): For too long, since October the 7th, they've only heard one narrative, and that's Hamas's narrative. And so, you know, I worked with the speaker. I know initially Schumer was against this idea.
And I really commend the speaker for calling Schumer's bluff and saying, look, I'm going to go forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, the invitation is drawn opposition from the Democratic caucus. Congressman Jamal Bowman emphatically said he wouldn't be attending.
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REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): It's despicable for us to even consider him coming here.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You wouldn't go if he attended.
JAMAAL: Hell no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, Iran's late president has been laid to rest after he and eight others were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday. State affiliated news agencies report top officials from Hamas, Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi rebels met with Iranian military leaders on the sidelines of that funeral. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Iran.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The streets of Mashhad jam-packed with people mourning the late president, Ebrahim Raisi, as a truck with his casket made its way to the Imam Reza shrine, one of the most important holy sites in Iran.
PLEITGEN: Hundreds of thousands of people have come out here on the streets of Mashhad. This is really very much the political and the spiritual homeland of Ebrahim Raisi. And the people here say while they're in great sorrow, they hope that Iran continues down that conservative trajectory That was common for Ebrahim Raisi's administration.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): In power for three years, Ebrahim Raisi was a conservative hardliner. Overseeing a crackdown on protests against Iran's strict hijab laws in 2022. But also the first ever strikes against Israel from Iranian soil in retaliation for the bombing of Iran's embassy compound in Syria.
Crowds at the funeral screaming death to Israel from Iranian soil in retaliation for the bombing of Iran's embassy compound in Syria. Crowds at the funeral screaming death to Israel and death to America. Vowing to remain loyal to Raisi's hardline agenda.
100 percent, 100 percent this man says, these are all Raisi's and they will continue.
And this woman says, we have come here to say if they took Raisi from us, we still have our supreme leader and we back him and we'll never leave him alone.
We have always expressed our position towards the U.S., this man says. Just like the policy of the president and the martyr Qasem Soleimani to struggle against arrogance. We won't allow the arm of arrogance to go around the world. We'll cut it down.
After Raisi, Iran's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several others were killed in a chopper crash in northern Iran on Sunday. Tehran says a new president will be elected in late June.
But this week has been one of mourning, culminating in the funeral prayers for Raisi inside the Imam Reza shrine.
As the body of Ebrahim Raisi was brought to its final resting place, Iran is looking ahead. One of the U.S.'s toughest adversaries soon to decide its political future.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Mashhad, Iran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: When we come back, Russian missiles take a deadly toll on Ukraine's second largest city and prompts its president to call for removing limits on striking back.
Plus, a big question for G7 countries. How do you use Russia's own money to help Ukraine fight the invasion?
Plus, red carpet and lavish state dinner. A strategic relationship. We'll have details on the Kenyan president's visit to Washington.
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FOSTER: Ukraine is reeling from the latest barrage of Russian missile strikes on its second largest city. Regional officials say seven people were killed and at least 23 others wounded in attacks on Kharkiv on Thursday. The targets included a major printing company that publishes newspapers and about a third of the books released in Ukraine as well.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country still lacks enough air defenses to fight back and he's urging some Western allies to allow Ukraine to use weapons provided by them to strike across the Russian border to defend itself.
Kharkiv came under fire as Russia is trying to push ahead with its new cross-border offensive north of the city.
And just into CNN, Russian state media reporting that a court has denied bail to a U.S. soldier who was detained earlier this month.
[04:20:00]
The decision follows an unsuccessful appeal by the lawyer for Army Staff Sergeant Gordon Black. Authorities in eastern Russia arrested the soldier on May 2nd on suspicion of stealing someone's property. He'll stay in detention until July 2nd according to a previous court ruling. A Russian official says the case is, quote, not related to politics or to espionage.
The army says that Black was not authorized to travel to Russia and didn't request official clearance to do so when he left his unit in South Korea close to a month ago now.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is propping up his relationship with a country that helped his invasion. He arrived in Belarus on Thursday for talks with his counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. The Kremlin says the discussions will include their strategic partnership and alliance. Belarus allowed Moscow to use its territory as a launchpad to invade Ukraine in 2022. Last year, Russia transferred some of its non- strategic nuclear weapons to Belarus.
G7 finance ministers began their working session in Italy just a few moments ago to try to agree on what to do with Russia's frozen financial assets. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars held in Western financial institutions since beginning --since the beginning of the war on Ukraine. The EU has already agreed to send some of the windfall profits from those assets to Ukraine, but the ministers now want to find additional ways to potentially send a much bigger chunk of money to Kyiv.
But Moscow is moving to potentially seize U.S. assets in Russia if its money is taken. CNN's Clare Sebastian reports.
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URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: We will stop Putin from using his war chest.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Just days after the first Russian military trucks rumbled over Ukraine's border, the West had crossed its own Rubicon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have imposed restrictive measures against Russia's central bank. SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Freezing around $300 billion of Russian foreign currency reserves, funds the Kremlin had saved up for a moment like this. Moscow was blindsided.
SERGEI LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): The reserves of the central bank, really none of those who made predictions could have thought what sanction the West might apply. It's theft.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): And yet within a few months as images of destruction flooded in, talk turned cautiously from freezing to seizing.
JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: I'm unclear whether or not it would be possible without legislation.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Alongside long-awaited military aid to Ukraine, that U.S. legislation finally came this April.
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our Congress has given us the power to seize Russian assets in the United States. We intend to use it.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): But Europe has by far the most skin in this game.
CHRISTINE LAGARDE, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK PRESIDENT: That opens a whole series of other questions which have to do with respect of the international legal order, which have to do with financial stability.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): About two thirds of the $300 billion of frozen assets are sitting in the EU, mostly in Euroclear, a Belgian financial institution.
TOM KEATINGE, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: They are earning this so-called extraordinary profit as a result of sort of sitting there and accruing interest. And I think people are comfortable that the extraordinary profit doesn't really belong to the Russians.
SEBASTIAN: You're in Brussels right now. Is there a sense of urgency among European leaders because of the potential for another Trump presidency?
KEATINGE: Part of the discussion here is acknowledging how difficult it was for the most recent tranche of funding to come out of the U.S. And so, of course, the Trump factor features.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Putin loves money above all.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): For Ukraine, too much time has already been lost. Russia's surprise offensive in the north likely already adding to what the World Bank estimates is a half trillion dollar reconstruction bill.
KEATINGE: The fact that Kharkiv is under as much pressure as it is under right now, that has to be at the front of mind of those who are thinking about, do we give the Ukrainians $2 billion? Do we give them $20 billion? Do we give them $200 billion?
So I think the most powerful weapon we can give them right now is funding.
SEBASTIAN (voice-over): Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: The U.S. has issued new restrictions for the nation of Georgia in response to the new repressive so-called foreign agents law and crackdowns on protests. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the new visa policy would target individuals who undermine democracy in the former Soviet Republic. And it comes nearly a week after the Georgian president vetoed the bill approved by the parliament 10 days ago.
Thousands marched in the streets for weeks in protest before it passed. The law would require organizations to register as foreign agents if they received more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. Critics argue it's modelled after laws in Russia used to stamp out opposition.
[04:25:00]
The White House has welcomed Kenya's president to Washington with a lavish state visit and splashy state dinner as well. William Ruto is the first African leader in 16 years to be honored in this way. The White House is trying to shore up relations with Kenya and other key African allies to counter China's charmer campaign on that continent.
Earlier, President Biden said Kenya would become the first major non- NATO ally in sub-Saharan Africa, praising its efforts to fight back against local terror groups. He also commemorated 60 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries and announced a new Nairobi-Washington vision.
Earlier, we asked a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies why this visit was so important to President Biden and to the U.S..
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CAMERON HUDSON, SENIOR FELLOW, AFRICAN PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: The president has said repeatedly that he values the relationship with Africa, that he's trying to elevate the relationship in strategic importance. And so absent him taking a trip to Africa to articulate all these things in person, he, you know, it was very important that he have an African head of state here.
I think that this cements Kenya as really having a privileged bilateral relationship among 54 other countries with the United States, clearly from security to trade to development, health, climate, you name it. This is a very broad ranging bilateral relationship that Kenya has developed.
I think for many African countries, Kenya included, they see real benefit in not having to choose between Washington and Beijing. They want to choose both. They don't want to make an either or choice because they don't see any conflict in having a security partner in Washington, a development partner in Beijing and a trade partner in Moscow. For Africans, that's a win-win-win.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Another key area of U.S.-Kenya cooperation is providing security for Haiti. Kenya has agreed to lead the U.N.-backed mission and deploy a thousand paramilitary police officers to Haiti to quell the violence.
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WILLIAM RUTO, KENYAN PRESIDENT: Kenya believes that the responsibility of peace and security anywhere in the world, including in Haiti, is the collective responsibility of all nations and all peoples who believe in freedom, self-determination, democracy and justice.
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FOSTER: It's not clear exactly when the mission will start though. President Ruto said the multinational force will work with Haitian police to, quote, break the backs of gangs and criminals. And President Biden explained why the U.S. will be largely funding the mission but won't be sending troops.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We concluded that for the United States to deploy forces in the hemisphere just raises all kinds of questions that can be easily misrepresented by what we're trying to do.
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FOSTER: President Biden thanked Kenya for its leadership and said U.S. forces will be supplying logistics, intelligence and equipment.
Donald Trump in a New York state of mind. He takes his message from the courthouse to the campaign trail.
That story and much more after the break.
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