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Heathrow Resumes Flights; Families of the Deported in the U.S. Desperately Hunt for Answers; New Mass Firings at the Department of Homeland Security; French Senator Shoots to Stardom after Anti-Trump Speech; Israel Declares a "Permanent" Presence in Gaza unless Hostages Are Freed; Monkeys Chase Man out of Thailand Hotel Pool. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired March 22, 2025 - 03:00   ET

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


[03:00:00]

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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN HOST AND U.S. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to all our viewers watching around the world. I'm Rafael Romo.

Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, flights are landing and taking off again at London's Heathrow Airport. We're looking at live pictures right now. But the impact of the fire and a power outage will be felt for a while.

Elon Musk meets with the U.S. Defense Secretary at the Pentagon but the U.S. president is denying the reason for his visit had anything to do with China.

And surprise encounter caught on camera. Why one tourist never wants to see another monkey again.

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ROMO: One of the world's busiest airports is getting back to business, with many flights resuming. That's after a fire and a power outage brought Heathrow in London to a complete standstill on Friday. And we're looking at live pictures from there right now.

The airport's chief executive says he expects the transport hub to be back to full 100 percent operation by Saturday morning. It's currently just after 7 am in London. Friday's electrical blackout disrupted global travel, throwing more than a thousand flights into disarray and disrupting plans for tens of thousands of passengers.

Heathrow's CEO defended how the airport handled the outage, saying it takes time to divert power after a substation failure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS WOLDBYE, CEO, HEATHROW AIRPORT: Contingencies of certain sizes, we cannot guard ourselves against 100 percent. And this is one of them. This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport.

And we are actually coming back quite fast, I would say. When you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down, then bring back up and make sure that they're safe, it's fueling systems, it's bridges, it's escalators, elevators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Let's go live now to London and CNN's Larry Madowo, who's at Heathrow Airport right now.

Larry, you were telling us in the last hour that you started seeing some movement.

Good news, right?

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good news, Rafael. A lot of planes have landed in the last hour. Heathrow is back running again. I've seen five United Aircraft land just in the last hour; Delta, American Airlines. And it tells you just how global this airline is.

I can see Ethiopian Airlines, Qantas, Lufthansa, JetBlue. Across this aircraft is a British Airways plane just taking off right now. So there are there are thousands of aircraft that land here that yesterday could not do so; 1,300 flights were disrupted, canceled.

Almost 200,000 passengers from around the world were looking to come here who could not do so because a power substation supplying the airport caught fire and that threw the entire airline into darkness, the entire airport into darkness.

The Heathrow Airport CEO has defended how they handled this, saying they actually came back much faster than they expected. But a lot of passengers were inconvenienced. They just can't imagine what it took to have a critical national infrastructure like Heathrow go offline on an important day.

And there will be a lot of questions to answer for that. But in the meantime, for people who are finally coming back here, hoping to get to their destination -- people missed weddings, funerals, birthdays, work, all sorts of other events, they're just grateful that it's back running, even though it will take some time to clear that backlog.

But hear from some passengers who had to deal with that confusion and chaos yesterday.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everything's just up in the air. It's pretty stressful and I'm worried about how much is it going to cost me to fix this, because I don't know if it's going to be fixed for me.

I think I'm going to have to pay a lot of money out of pocket today. I've been looking at flights out of other airports in London.

But there are not as many options because I think people are scooping them up, even for flights tomorrow from other airports. They're very, very expensive, like over $1,000. And more than that actually, like up to $2,000 just for this one-way trip.

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MADOWO: That's a lot of money. And London does have other airports but this is the main one. That's why so many people were left in the lurch.

ROMO: And Larry, is it too early to talk about compensation?

What can passengers expect?

[03:05:00]

MADOWO: So that's a complicated one. The simple answer is it depends if you can get compensation, because this was a factor outside of the airlines' control. They will not necessarily be offering compensation beyond accommodating people, offering meal tickets, maybe overnight accommodation.

But this was not something that is caused by the delays, operational issues. However, if you've got travel insurance or from your credit card, then maybe you can expect compensation from those factors.

So a lot of people who were probably having to go out of pocket to pay for their own meals or hotels, because every airline was affected by this.

And there was a big scramble. It might be much harder to get compensation than they expected just because of the unprecedented nature of this disaster, the chaos caused by Heathrow shutting down for almost 18 hours. Rafael.

ROMO: Yes, that's right. A lot of people wondering if they'll be able to get any money back. Larry Madowo at Heathrow Airport in London. Thank you very much.

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ROMO: Donald Trump is facing a new hurdle in his effort to carry out mass deportations in the United States. A federal judge says the administration, using a 1798 wartime law, is awfully frightening.

The Justice Department used the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants last weekend, who it claimed were gang members. But Judge James Boasberg ordered them not to do that.

During a hearing on Friday, the judge said, quote, "I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be."

The judge also said the proclamation invoking the 18th century law was signed in the dark of night. But president Trump says he didn't sign the document and that the operation belongs to secretary of state Marco Rubio. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I would say that I'd have the secretary of state handle it, because I'm not really involved in that. But the concept of getting a bad people murderers, rapists, drug dealers, all of the these are really some bad people out of our country. I ran on that. I won on that.

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ROMO: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez spoke to some families of those deported migrants who are on a desperate search for answers.

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PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Yurli (ph) has been searching for her brother. She is one of several Venezuelan families whose relatives have disappeared.

They were subject to a sweeping wartime authority that allowed their swift removal from the United States. All accused of having ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Their tattoos appearing to factor into that determination.

She says he's not a criminal. Yurli's brother, Jhon, arrived in the United States last October after securing an appointment to request asylum, where he was later detained.

Yan is a tattoo artist with tattoos of his own but she says he has no criminal record or ties to the gang. The Department of Homeland Security did not provide CNN the basis for his deportation despite multiple requests.

YURLIANA CHACIN, SISTER OF VENEZUELAN DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR (through translator): He was asked at that time about the tattoos and if he was associated with the gang.

ALVAREZ (voice-over): While in detention, Jhon called his sister often, sometimes multiple times a day, to check in. ALVAREZ: Every morning, she says, she would sign on to this app, including in the evenings or whenever she got a notification, so that she could talk to her brother, who was in detention.

ALVAREZ (voice-over): In early March, he was moved to a facility in Texas. He had become more anxious, his sister says and believed he might be deported to Venezuela. Then he vanished.

On Sunday, Yurli learned planes had arrived in El Salvador carrying migrants and had a lingering suspicion he might be one of them. As videos and photos released by the Salvadoran emerged, Yurli spotted a photo on the news.

She felt confident it was her brother.

ALVAREZ: So she sent this photo to her family because she could see the arrow -- she put the arrow to send it to them and say, this could be our brother. She noticed his hair was cut.

ALVAREZ (voice-over): She needed confirmation. Then finally, a call with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed her worst nightmare. Her brother had been sent to a notorious mega prison in El Salvador.

ALVAREZ: I am with his sister. Where was he removed?

ALVAREZ (voice-over): It was the answer she was desperately seeking but also feared. El Salvador Center for Terrorism Confinement, known as CECOT, is the largest prison in the America's and is infamous for its harsh conditions. Her brother, like other migrants, is now in Salvadoran custody, raising questions about what happens to them next.

[03:10:02]

Trump officials have maintained that those sent to CECOT were, quote, "carefully vetted," but also conceded that many of those removed did not have criminal records in the United States.

ALVAREZ: The United States has given you some opportunity, as you've described but also it's the U.S. government that sent him to El Salvador.

CHACIN (through translator): I just think it's their laws. But you can't judge, imprison or jail an innocent person based on your laws. They had to investigate thoroughly.

ALVAREZ (voice-over): Yurli now has some answers but also plenty of questions, among them, how and if she'll ever get her brother back.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: New mass firings by the Trump administration. Ahead, why these new cuts are coming at the Department of Homeland Security and are tied to Mr. Trump's deportations.

Plus, president Trump is defending Elon Musk's mystery meeting at the Pentagon. We'll have details after the break.

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ROMO: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced new mass firings on Friday. The agency is gutting offices that focus on oversight of civil rights violations, citizenship services and immigration detention.

[03:15:00]

The DHS says those offices obstructed its crackdown on immigration. The cuts come amid concerns that the administration's deportation efforts threaten civil liberties. President Donald Trump is rejecting reports that Elon Musk was being

briefed on U.S. military plans for a potential war with China while at the Pentagon Friday. The man in charge of slashing U.S. government costs and staffing met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. CNN's Oren Liebermann has the details.

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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Elon Musk was in the Pentagon on Friday for just under 90 minutes. He showed up just before 9:00 in the morning and was out right around 10:20.

"The New York Times" reported that he was there to receive what would be a highly classified briefing about U.S. war plans in the event of a war with China. But there was a vociferous pushback on that from the White House and from the Defense Department itself, who called the reporting essentially false and saying that's not why he was there.

There was a crowd as Musk arrived outside of the Tang (ph). That is the room in which there are highly classified briefings or sensitive briefings with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went into that room. The chief of staff, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went into that room. But Musk ultimately did not. Instead, he went right upstairs, pretty much, and sat down and talked to Hegseth for most of that hour and 20 minutes that he was in the building or so.

When he came out, we asked him, how was the meeting?

He effectively said it was it was a good meeting and that he's been here before. He wouldn't answer questions on what it was about, what was the reasoning for him being there.

But as he walked out, he shook hands with the Defense Secretary and said that he should reach out if Musk can ever help him with anything.

Later, as president Donald Trump announced a new U.S. fighter jet program, Trump was asked about it. He said, when he initially saw the reporting, he reached out to his Defense Secretary and asked him, is this why Musk is coming to the Pentagon?

And he says he was told that, no, Musk is there for DOGE, not for China.

So we're seeing this again, this pushback effectively from just about every part of the administration on the question of whether Musk was visiting the Pentagon for a briefing on China.

Now, of course, Musk himself has business interests in China, that through SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla. And that's part of what Trump pointed out, that there would be conflicts of interest here, that Musk has business interests in China, acknowledging the existence of those links.

And Trump said that's not the sort of person that should have the information that is incredibly sensitive on what war plans might look like -- Oren Liebermann, CNN, in Washington.

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ROMO: We're starting to get an idea of what the upcoming Ukraine ceasefire talks in Saudi Arabia will look like. U.S. officials say the American delegation will first sit down with the Ukrainians on Monday before speaking with Russians.

The two sides will be in separate rooms, with U.S. officials shuttling between them. The goal is to fill in the details about a pause in attacks on energy targets, which both sides have agreed to, and to try to achieve a ceasefire in the Black Sea. The U.S. president says he's confident the process will work.

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TRUMP: Pretty soon, we'll have a full ceasefire and then we're going to have a contract. And the contracts being negotiated, the contract in terms of dividing up the lands, et cetera, et cetera, it's being negotiated as we speak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: But a ceasefire is still far from reality in Ukraine, where at least seven people were killed in Russian strikes across the country on Friday. Officials say they include a father and his teenage daughter, who died after a barrage of drones hit the city of Zaporizhzhya.

U.S. President Donald Trump compared with an infamous Roman emperor, Elon Musk called a buffoon and the White House described as a bunch of yes men. That's how one French senator summed up the current situation in Washington. And as Melissa Bell reports, that speech was his ticket to international fame.

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CLAUDE MALHURET, FRENCH SENATOR (through translator): Washington has become Nero's court with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a buffoon on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Words delivered to the French senate that resonated far beyond, picked up by CNN after they went viral online.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Those last words really stuck with me.

BELL: Senator Claude Malhuret's criticism of President Trump and Elon Musk leading to sudden stardom.

MALHURET: Many of the mails I received are saying the same thing. It's -- why is it a French parliamentarian who makes such a speech?

It should be one of our parliamentarian, member of Congress or member of the Senate in the United States.

BELL: The speech was written, Malhuret says, in outrage after watching Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's humiliation by President Trump and his most senior officials in the oval office three weeks ago.

TRUMP: Military equipment.

BELL: Outrage shared by all of Ukraine's allies.

[03:20:00]

The nerve struck by the senator speaks to the deep sense of betrayal currently felt in Europe, France, America's oldest ally, had even gifted the Statue of Liberty to the United States in the 19th century to celebrate their common attachment to democracy, keeping just a smaller version of it here in Paris.

RAPHAEL GLUCKSMANN, FRENCH POLITICIAN (through translator): Give us back the Statue of Liberty. We gave it to you as a present but apparently you didn't like it. We want the big one.

BELL: A symbolic demand, says Raphael Glucksmann, who's an outspoken European lawmaker who also struck a nerve this week this time in the White House.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: My advice to that unnamed low level French politician would be to remind them that its only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now.

GLUCKSMANN: Actually, for me, it would be even worse. I would not even exist because my family would have been killed. But the truth is, I'm not sure that if Trump was in the White House instead of Roosevelt, we would not be right now speaking German.

BELL: Back in the French senate, it is now into English that Senator Claude Malhuret says he'll be translating future speeches.

MALHURET: We were at war with a dictator. Now were fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor.

BELL: To make sure that he is heard loud and clear across the Atlantic -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: Mass protests continued in several cities across Turkiye on Friday over the government detention of Istanbul's mayor.

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ROMO (voice-over): Thousands of protesters have been taking to the streets and defying a ban on public gatherings in some cities. It has led to clashes with police. Protesters are demanding the government release Istanbul's mayor, a key opposition rival to Turkiye's president.

Authorities detained Ekrem Imamoglu on Wednesday as part of an investigation into corruption and terrorism.

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ROMO (voice-over): Self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother are back in Romania to check in with police. They're facing charges including human trafficking and forming an organized crime group. They deny all the accusations and say they're there to clear their names.

The Romanians let them go to Florida last month as they await trial, only to find they're now under a criminal investigation in the U.S. state. The brothers are required to check in regularly with Romanian police. Andrew Tate is a U.S. born professional fighter, who gained a huge online following by peddling sexist content about male dominance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Still ahead on CNN, Israel warns Hamas, release the hostages or we may not leave Gaza. We'll have the latest out of the Middle East after the break. Stay with us.

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[03:25:00]

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ROMO (voice-over): Welcome back to the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rafael Romo. Let's check today's top stories.

London's Heathrow Airport is returning to normal operations with many flights resuming. This comes after a fire and power blackout on Friday caused the busiest airport in Europe to completely shut down. Airlines are warning passengers to expect disruptions as the backlog of flights clears out in the days ahead.

The U.S. judge overseeing a legal challenge to the Trump administration, deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, says the administration, using a 1798 wartime law, is awfully frightening. And he's vowing to find out if Justice Department officials violated his order to turn around deportation flights to El Salvador last weekend.

And boxing great George Foreman has died peacefully at the age of 76. The two-time world heavyweight champ was called one of the sport's most powerful punchers and was remembered for his legendary rivalry with Muhammad Ali.

(MUSIC PLAYING) ROMO: Israel's military says it intercepted three projectiles fired from Lebanon early Saturday, the first such incident in more than three months. They say two other projectiles fell back into Lebanese territory. No casualties or damage has been immediately reported.

Meantime, the Israeli defense minister is warning Hamas, let the hostages go or Israel will keep a permanent presence in parts of Gaza. Israel is escalating a new offensive in Gaza after a fragile ceasefire collapsed on Tuesday. Since then, Israeli strikes on the enclave have reportedly killed hundreds of people.

And now it appears the Israeli military is looking to expand ground operations. For its part, Hamas says it's considering the latest U.S. ceasefire plan for Gaza and remains fully engaged in the mediation process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: Dahlia Scheindlin is a political analyst and columnist with "Ha'aretz" and a fellow with the Century Foundation. She joins us from New York.

Thank you very much for being with us. In an analysis article you wrote for "Haaretz," you say that prime minister Netanyahu wants an endless war in Gaza but most Israelis do not want to fight anymore. Yet this week we saw new airstrikes.

What do you make of the current situation?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN, POLITICAL ANALYST, "HA'ARETZ"; FELLOW, CENTURY FOUNDATION: It's problematic because I think we have the government, who has been wanting to restart this war pretty much ever since the ceasefire went into effect in mid-January. But the Israeli public has gotten quite used to not being at war.

There is a great deal of exhaustion, fatigue and I think an increasing sense among the public. We see it in surveys, that a majority think that the government is making its decisions for the wrong reasons, primarily to preserve its own power, rather than having the best interests or the security of the country in mind.

That's leading -- also that's augmenting the fatigue we talked about before. Reservists who are exhausted and their families are having difficulties after hundreds of days of fighting, many rounds of duty.

And so I think we're seeing the combination of both the fatigue and the political skepticism of people not sure where this war is going and what the government intends to achieve, leading to, you know, in a way, I mean, we've seen large demonstrations over the last number of days.

And there's a great uncertainty about whether Israelis will have the morale for a war that doesn't seem to have an end, because the government has not been able to articulate specific goals that would need to be achieved in order for the war to end. Only these very general goals of destroying Hamas that have no end in

sight and certainly the government says it wants to get the hostages back. But so far, the military campaign has not brought the hostages back.

[03:30:00]

Only a deal has done that. And Israelis are frankly confused.

ROMO: And your answer actually leads me to the next question that I wanted to ask you.

When it comes to Israel's war with Hamas, what does victory look like for most Israelis?

What do they want out of this conflict?

SCHEINDLIN: Well, I think you have to realize there is the majority of Israelis, who would like to see their security established once again, who would primarily, more than anything else, like to see the hostages back. That has been a consensus.

Well, I shouldn't say a consensus. I mean, I would say, at this point, over 70 percent, which is close to a consensus in survey terms. But you still have the core of a minority, let's say, 25 percent to 30 percent, roughly, who agree with the government.

And that means not prioritizing the hostages but prioritizing destroying Hamas. What destroying Hamas means, however, is completely vague. I think there is, at this point, a very widespread understanding that there's no way to completely eradicate Hamas. It's a matter of mitigating the damage.

And, you know, the majority want the hostages back, first of all, before worrying about the fate of Hamas. But that's where you get into trouble, because the Israeli public is divided over this. Again, a majority prefer the hostages back.

But the government isn't interested in the majority. It's looking at its core supporters, the minority that I talked about before, who is happy not only to continue fighting.

But I think has, you know, longer sort of religious fundamentalist visions on its mind, expressed by some of the senior ministers in the Netanyahu government, that involve taking over Gaza, establishing a military government and eventually reestablishing settlements and even possibly annexation.

We saw the defense minister talking about taking territory and effectively annexing it to Israel just today. And there is that core that supports that. The government is not interested, particularly, in that majority, who would prioritize hostages and their security.

But the minority, who prefer a grandiose, ideological vision of victory that involves completely conquering Hamas and probably possibly controlling it for the long term. ROMO: What would you say has been the impact of the return of Donald

Trump to the White House when it comes to the decisions prime minister Netanyahu has recently made regarding Gaza?

SCHEINDLIN: There's no question that there's been an emboldening and a very significant hardening of the Israeli position.

I mean, the first thing that happened before Donald Trump was in office was that his envoy, Steve Witkoff, finally pushed through the deal for a ceasefire and a hostage release in exchange for prisoner -- for Israelis -- Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners. So that was a -- that was something different.

The Biden administration was unable to do that. But since that time, the Trump administration has effectively undermined its own policy, by Trump, first of all, calling to expel Gazans and then saying Hamas must release all hostages or have hell to pay.

Of course, Hamas should release all the hostages. But the political reality that we're in is that that won't happen without the deal. And Trump effectively undermined the deal that his own envoy had established just some weeks before.

Israel clearly took that as a sign, whether it was explicit or implicit, that it had essentially free reign to go much further in Gaza. You've seen a complete shift in tone coming from the government, talking openly about the possibility -- about unleashing the full fury of its military power against Gaza for the resurgent war.

And, of course, what we're seeing on the ground, which is, you know, a very extensive air campaign and the beginning of a kind of three- pronged ground invasion so far. So we have no idea where this will end.

And I think that that has -- the Israeli government clearly thinks that America is prepared for that, that the administration maybe even supports that.

ROMO: Dahlia Scheindlin, thank you very much for joining us.

SCHEINDLIN: Thank you for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: In a moment, relaxing in Thailand was anything but relaxing for a British backpacker. Coming up, why his encounter at a hotel pool went viral online.

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[03:35:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING) ROMO: British soldiers in Estonia welcome a royal visitor on Friday. Unshaven and clad in battle gear, Prince William was greeted at a camp about 200 kilometers from the Russian border. The prince, who served in the military, is there to show his country's support for NATO operations in Eastern Europe.

The two-day visit comes as European allies are ramping up defense spending after U.S. president Donald Trump called for other NATO nations to contribute more to Europe's security.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano put on a dazzling display of power, spewing lava more than 200 meters in the air. After a week-long pause, the volcano erupted again earlier this week, making this the 14th time it has done so since December of last year.

The eruption remains confined to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and is not a threat to residential areas.

A renegade tourist was met by angry jeers while visiting a Mayan pyramid.

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ROMO (voice-over): The 38 year old German tourist was seen climbing Mexico's sacred El Castillo pyramid to the backdrop of outraged visitors, booing and shouting "sacrifice." The man tried to shake off security and hide inside the pyramid. He was later escorted off the site.

Visitors gathered at El Castillo to witness the feathered serpent phenomenon that occurs twice a year, when light from the setting sun creates seven isosceles triangles on the pyramid steps.

A British backpacker got more adventure than he expected while on vacation in Thailand. The traveler was confronted by a troop of monkeys while out enjoying his hotel's pool. Here he is recalling the frightening encounter to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KANE SMITH, BRITISH BACKPACKER: Guys...

Go away.

I was originally like speaking to a friend on the phone.

And then I saw one monkey pop up.

So I was like, oh, hang on. Let me just take a video out first. I thought it was like a cute little monkey. And I thought like, no harm at all. Just take a quick video.

No, why is it doing that?

My God. Oh, my (INAUDIBLE) God. Oh, my God.

It was one monkey approaches, like another one, another one. Like it was just a whole family of them.

Oh, my God, there's more. Oh, (INAUDIBLE). No!

My thought process was, no, I'm not staying in that pool. I imagine, just imagine they all surrounded me. Oh, well, they did anyway. But I'm in the middle of the pool and they're all trying to get to me. There's no way. I needed to escape right away.

There's a whole family. I'm scared.

Where the monkeys are entering from is my only exit. So I'm just retreating.

Off! Don't come near me.

And they wasn't thinking the same thing that I was thinking.

Don't come. No, no. Oh, my God,

[03:40:05]

They come around the pool. So I'm like, I need to get out. Like, this is my chance because they've all kind of rotated so I can escape. I try just to keep peace with them. And, as you see, it didn't really work.

No. No. No! No!

I love animals. Who doesn't?

But now I'm sorry. Monkeys I despise and I never want to see another monkey in my life again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Scary or funny?

What do you think?

Two of Hong Kong's beloved panda cubs were reunited with their mother at Ocean Park Friday. The cubs, known as Elder Sister and Little Brother, interacted with their mom, Ying Ying, inside an enclosure after spending days under careful observation and training.

Officials say the pandas have successfully adapted to their new environment. And on Saturday, Mom and their twins will greet park visitors together from the exhibit area for the first time.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Rafael Romo. "WORLD SPORT" is next and there's more CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber in about 15 minutes' time.