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U.S. Vetoes Gaza Ceasefire Resolution; Trump: Putin Vows To Respond To Kyiv's Strikes On Air Bases; Gaza Aid Distribution To Resume After Deadly Shootings; Unexploded WWII Bombs Prompt Mass Evacuation In Cologne; Campaign To Free Son Puts Laila Soueif In Critical Conditions; More Than 200 Wildfires Buring Across Canada; Glaciers On Track To Lose 40 Percent Of Their Mass; Dutch Couple On Fifth Year Of Sailing Trip Around The World. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired June 05, 2025 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST: Hello and welcome to all you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN Newsroom.
The U.S. vetoes a Gaza ceasefire resolution as controversial aid distribution sites are set to reopen. President Trump has a long phone call with Vladimir Putin who's vowing to retaliate for Ukraine's massive drone strikes deep inside Russia. And we'll meet a Dutch couple who are five years into their quest to sail around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: Donald Trump says he had a good conversation with Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, but it wouldn't lead to an immediate end to the fighting. The call comes as peace talks remain stalled. The U.S. President says that Putin vowed to retaliate against Kyiv for its drone attacks on Russian airfields over the weekend. A member of Ukraine's parliament slammed Trump's statement after the call with the Russian leader as disgraceful and accused the U.S. President of failing to put pressure on Moscow to end the war.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is warning world leaders not to show weakness towards Putin, writing quote, "If the world reacts weakly to Putin's threats, he interprets it as a readiness to turn a blind eye to his actions. When he does not feel strength and pressure, but instead senses weakness, he always commits new crimes." Yet more now on the call between Trump And Putin from CNN's Nic Robertson in London.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The language that he used relaying what President Putin said to him, which was, quote, "I have to respond." That's what he says Putin said to him. I have to respond really invites the possibility of a rebuttal or a comment to try another method. So, yes, that was very noticeably absent there.
But I think we also heard more from the Kremlin about what happened in that phone call and the Kremlin's view on the state of peace talks with Ukraine. The Kremlin is saying, you know, to Vladimir Zelensky's request for a leaders meeting between Putin and Zelensky and Trump could be present and other leaders could be there.
They're saying not now. And the reason they're saying that the talks, these talks aren't working and that the leaders meeting shouldn't happen is because they're accusing Ukraine of terrorism and citing these two attacks over the weekend on rail infrastructure inside of Russia where civilians died and that it seems would have been very much part of Putin's conversation with Trump as well. Of course, watchers in Kyiv and in Europe would, would understand that Russia, in a way is the pot calling the cattle black because Russia by day and by night continues to bomb Ukrainian citizens through cities across the country.
So if that was the narrative President Trump was left with, there's a glaring absence in what his relayed about it because absent, as you say, was a rebuttal.
BRUNHUBER: Earlier, I spoke with Malcolm Davis, senior Analyst for Defense Strategy and Capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. I asked him what any reprisal by Moscow could look like. Here it is.
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MALCOM DAVIS, SR. ANALYST, AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE: I really don't think it's likely that Russia will turn to nuclear weapons at this point. This attack by Ukraine on the Russian bombers was quite devastating and has severely reduced Russian strategic bomber capacity. But it's not a justification to cross the nuclear threshold.
So what Russia could do, I think, is dramatically escalate the conventional attacks on Ukraine, including against cities. They could also launch new offensives from the north. They're building up forces in Belarus that could threaten Kharkiv. And I think the third option that they might do is start attacking shipping in the Black Sea to try and starve Ukraine essentially of food supplies.
BRUNHUBER: All right, so CNN spoke with the Ukrainian MP, the chair of their Foreign Affairs Committee, who's visiting the U.S. and he said, based on the readout of the call between Trump and Putin yesterday, that Trump is giving a green light, in his words, to Putin's retaliation. Do you agree with?
DAVIS: Yes. And I think that what Trump should have done when Putin suggested he was going to retaliate strongly would have been for Trump to say, no, back down. This is not the way to go. I think that even if Putin had refused to consider Trump's advice, at least Trump would have been seen to be not giving the green light to an escalation of the war.
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[01:05:08] BRUNHUBER: The U.S. has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The measure also called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages still held in Gaza. The other 14 countries on the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. Israel's foreign minister thanked the Trump administration for its support. The U.S. says it's unacceptable that the measure failed to condemn Hamas or call for the group to disarm or leave Gaza.
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DOROTHY SHEA, ACTING U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: This resolution refuses to acknowledge the disastrous shortcomings of the prior method of aid delivery, which allowed Hamas to enrich itself at the expense of Palestinians and failed to get food and water to those who needed it most. No one wants to see Palestinian civilians in Gaza go hungry or thirsty. We instead urge the UN and NGOs to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to help it safely deliver aid without being diverted by Hamas.
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BRUNHUBER: That aid operation by the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian foundation is expected to resume in the day ahead. The group paused distribution for 24 hours on Wednesday after a series of shootings left dead dozens of Gaza residents dead.
All right. Joining me now from Berlin is Sam Rose, who's the acting director of UNWRA affairs in Gaza. Good to speak with you again. So tragically, many in Gaza are dying of starvation and facing death if they try to get food aid. A no-win situation for so many.
So in terms of the security situation around aid delivery, specifically, what's going wrong in your eyes?
SAM ROSE, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNRWA AFFAIRS IN GAZA: Thanks for having me on. What's going on is the way this system is set up. Thousands of people are being forced to journey several kilometers through itself, a war zone. And let's not forget people are not just dying from starvation and at this hub, but they're dying through bombardments as well, that are continuing. But people are being forced to journey several kilometers in heat through a war zone into essentially what are cattle pens to collect aid. It's impossible in these situations to provide any kind of security. There have been multiple shooting incidents.
I think a CNN investigation overnight indicated that those that gunfire likely came from, from Israeli troops and people are being killed and people are being injured and the situation is so desperate that people continue to come for that food or else they find themselves in the midst of these crowds that are being shot at and panic and chaos ensues. That seems to be what's happening.
BRUNHUBER: And the Gaza Humanitarian foundation it has somewhat four aid distribution sites compared to the UN's 400 or so. Is that at the heart of the problem here? ROSE: That's part of it four of these hubs, I don't know how many
precisely, have been functioning at any one time. I believe maybe two at most. The much vaunted figures of 7 million meals that have been distributed, when you take that over the space of a week, that's fewer than 1 million meals a day when the community needs over 6 million meals a day. So 7 million meals over the course of a week. My organization, UNWRA alone, we distributed over 75 million meals in the first 10 days of the ceasefire.
And we're not just talking here about food distribution. The aid community provides shelter supplies, hygiene items, menstrual supplies for women. We provide shelter, health care, water, sanitation, garbage collection, all these things that people need for a dignified life.
BRUNHUBER: Now, that organization had paused a delivery for a day to sort of address some of the problems. But looking at the scale of the challenges, I mean, it sounds like it would take a lot longer than that, frankly, to fix.
ROSE: Yes, look, we have 400 distribution points so that we can reach people as close to where they're living, so that we can provide these distributions in an orderly, dignified manner. Where people are called to say that it's their time to distribute aid. They come in an orderly fashion to distribution points that they're familiar with, their names get checked off of a list that are on a bulletin board outside, and they're able to go home.
What we have here are people who are being forced towards armed, you know, armed militarized areas. It's aid that's being provided by one of the parties that, to the conflict. And it's -- we're seeing that it's not working. And it gives me no pleasure to say that everything we said about this, what would happen, has actually happened. It's devastating for people on the ground who are continuing to starve, to suffer.
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BRUNHUBER: Now they've frozen your organization out. The argument that Israel and the Trump administration makes is that your organization could no longer be trusted to deliver aid because they claim so much of it was being stolen by Hamas. How do you respond to that?
ROSE: I mean, we'd ask for evidence, we'd ask for evidence to show that aid provided by UNRWA, provided by the UN has been stolen by Hamas. We've not seen any of that evidence. We've not witnessed any of that theft. I was in Gaza for 15 months and we didn't see it alongside hundreds of, and hundreds of humanitarian colleagues, none of whom have reported wide scale diversion.
If you don't believe us, United nations agencies, humanitarian organizations, and the simple answer is to let the journalists in to document it and look into it for themselves. I have nothing to hide. We have absolutely nothing to hide on this. We believe we have very robust mechanisms for the distribution of aid that prove themselves to work during the ceasefire.
BRUNHUBER: Certainly the needs are so great. Something needs to be changed here. Sam Rose, really appreciate having you on.
ROSE: Thank you.
BRUNHUBER: President Trump has signed a new travel ban that will block people from several countries from traveling to the United States. It will fully restrict entry by nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Eritrea, Iran, and Yemen. People from seven other countries, including Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, and Venezuela, will be partly restricted. The White House says the President's ban fulfills a campaign promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors who want to come to the U.S. and cause harm.
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MARKWAYNE MULLIN, U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN: We've been briefed on this prior to this happening. There are some real travel concerns because of some activities that is going in place. I don't think the Boulder incident had anything to do with this moving forward because this conversation has been going on for weeks. And the President takes keeping the American people safe extremely important to him. He talks about it all the time.
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BRUNHUBER: The administration cites a number of reasons countries were chosen for the ban, including a large scale terrorist presence, failure to cooperate on visa security, inability to verify travelers' identities, and a persistently high rate of visa overstays. The White House says the ban will take effect this Monday.
The Trump administration is making another attempt to prevent Harvard University from enrolling more international students. The President signed a proclamation on Wednesday that suspends visas of new international students at Harvard. The proclamation is valid for six months, but it can be extended. Now this comes after a district court ordered the Trump administration not to make any changes to Harvard's international student visa program indefinitely. Harvard called the move another illegal retaliation by the White House and pledged to protect its international students.
While Republican lawmakers are scrambling to downplay Elon Musk's criticism of President Trump's mega bill, what Musk is saying now about the legislation that's ahead. Plus unexploded bombs from World War II were sitting underneath a German city for decades. When they were discovered, the city took drastic action. That's ahead. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. President appears to be struggling to get China's president on the phone to talk trade. The White House has said a call between the two leaders could happen as early as Thursday, but it's not clear if Beijing is on board. Donald Trump expressed his frustration on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social, quote, "I like President Xi of China, always have and always will, but he is very tough and extremely hard to make a deal with."
Relations deteriorated after President Trump applied steep tariffs on China, setting off the growing trade War. Talks in Geneva last month led to a dramatic de-escalation, but tensions have been flaring again in recent days.
Meanwhile, the United States' neighbors are lashing out over the Trump administration's newly imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The Canadian prime minister says his government is preparing reprisals if negotiations fail to remove the doubled tariffs. Mark Carney also said Canada would take some time to respond, but not much. And the Mexican president said on Wednesday that there is no legal basis for the tariff increase. Claudia Sheinbaum also promised to announce countermeasures next week if the import taxes are still in place. She said it's not a matter of revenge, but protection.
CNN's Matt Egan breaks down what products could get more expensive for consumers and why the manufacturing industry is worried about job losses.
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MATT EGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Experts say higher prices are inevitable on everything from cars and construction projects to appliances and canned goods. Basically, anything that relies on imported steel and aluminum will get more expensive, and companies could pass those higher costs on to you. Why? 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are now in effect.
That is double the previous 25 percent duty. It's the steepest tariffs implemented by the United States since at least the 1930s. So why is this happening?
The Trump administration says these tariffs are crucial to national security and the economy. The White House wants to bring back steel and aluminum production to the United States by making foreign imports more expensive.
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DONALD TRUMP, USA PRESIDENT: Nobody's going to be able to steal your industry. It's at 25 percent, they can sort of get over that fence. At 50 percent, they can no longer get over the fence.
EGAN: The steel industry is cheering the move. The aluminum industry, however, a little less excited. Some aluminum executives are worried that a 50 percent tariff will cut off the supply of raw aluminum from Canada, ultimately hurting jobs in the aluminum industry that rely on those imports. And jobs could also be at risk at manufacturers that use steel and aluminum. And they have reason to be concerned. Studies of the steel and aluminum tariffs that President Trump implemented in 2018 found that for every steel job that was saved, there were 75 jobs lost elsewhere in manufacturing.
(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: Senate Republicans are optimistic about the future of
President Trump's mega bill after meetings at the White House on Wednesday. Lawmakers said they had constructive conversations about the bill to fund the president's domestic agenda, which has split Congress and even the Republican Party on some issues. But Republicans say they found a path forward.
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JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN: Republicans are committed to a safe and prosperous America, and that's what this bill does. It provides for safety as well as prosperity for the American people. We shared with the president the fact that the American people trust Republicans much more on the economy than they do the Democrats. And this bill does what the American people want us to do. And the number one and most important thing is that this bill prevents a $4 trillion tax increase, which would be the largest tax increase in the history of the country.
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BRUNHUBER: When asked about the reaction from former presidential adviser Elon Musk, who called the bill a disgusting abomination, senators said the Tesla CEO was only referenced in passing during the meeting. CNN's Manu Raju has more reactions from lawmakers on Musk's criticism.
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MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (VOICEOVER): He had been one of President Trump's loudest allies. The chainsaw for bureaucracy. But now Elon Musk is becoming a major GOP problem as he lashes out at Trump's sweeping policy bill, angering Republicans as they labor to get the votes.
ELI CRANE, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN: Why wasn't he talking about this before the bill, right, and that's what frustrates me. Hey, if you're going to be in this fight when we need you, because we needed him.
RAJU (voiceover): Musk waited until Tuesday to put out his most scathing criticism, calling the measure a disgusting abomination, saying shame to those who voted for it. And today continuing his attacks, giving ammunition to the bill's GOP critics, who say the bill would balloon the national debt that has already grown an additional $16 trillion since 2017.
RAND PAUL, U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN: The new spending of this bill actually. Exceeds all the work he did to try to find savings. So I can understand his disappointment.
RAJU (voiceover): Musk putting GOP supporters on the defensive.
RAJU: He says you're basically saddling this country with unsustainable debt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he's right. The debt is unsustainable. RAJU (voiceover): After the House passed Trump's bill by just a single
vote, the Senate GOP now debating changes to the massive bill, which includes a major overhaul of the tax code and federal spending cuts, including to programs like Medicaid and food stamps. All as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the House bill would raise federal deficits by $2.4 trillion over a decade and leave nearly 11 million people without health insurance. Yet GOP supporters argue it would raise revenue through economic growth.
MIKE JOHNSON, HOUSE SPEAKER: We're not buying the CBO's estimates. I don't think that's right.
RAJU (voiceover): Speaker Mike Johnson spoke for half an hour with Musk on Tuesday and thought they were on the same page. Later, Johnson said Musk, the owner of Tesla, was objecting to electric vehicle tax incentives due to be phased out under the bill.
JOHNSON: That is going away because the government should not be subsidizing these things. I know that has an effect on its business, and I lament that.
RAJU: Do you think that Tesla is what's driving this, is what you're suggesting?
JOHNSON: I'm going to let others draw their own conclusions about that.
RAJU (voiceover): GOP leaders are facing pressure from Senate moderates like Lisa Murkowski, worried about quickly phasing out green energy tax breaks and cutting back on Medicaid.
LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATE REPUBLICAN: We've got some work to do to make sure that Alaskans are not going to be negatively impacted.
RAJU (voiceover): Yet if Murkowski gets her way, it could cost support from House hardliners who are pushing for deeper cuts.
CHIP ROY, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN: So if the Senate wants to go that direction, then this bill is. I mean, it's not even close to passing, so they need to go further or the bill's dead.
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RAJU: Now, the speaker did indicate that Trump was upset at what he saw from Elon Musk. But Johnson also suggested that it would not have an ultimate impact on their goal here was to get this to become law this summer as soon as July 4th. He said that even though Elon Musk has the largest media social media platform in the world, with followers about 220 million on X, he said that the trajectory ultimately is still -- they're still on pace to get this bill across the finish line, and it would not have an impact on their ultimate goal. Manu Raju, CNN Capitol Hill.
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BRUNHUBER: A lot more to come here on CNN Newsroom. We'll check on the mother of a British Egyptian activist currently on a hunger strike in hopes of freeing her son. All that and more coming up. Please stay.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to everybody watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
Germany's new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, will have his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the coming hours at the white House. That comes amid several high stakes international issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as President Trump's push for global tariffs.
The two leaders appear to be in agreement on NATO members boosting their defense spending. Experts say Germany wants to maintain a strong relationship with Washington, partly because of the growing threat from Russia.
An evacuation order has been lifted in the German city of cologne after three unexploded bombs from World War III were defused. More than 20,000 people were told to leave their homes and businesses on Wednesday, which turned part of the city into a ghost town. It was the largest evacuation since the war itself.
The bombs, which weighed up to 20 tons each, were discovered in a shipyard Monday. Cologne was decimated during the war, and the discovery of unexploded ordnance isn't uncommon and officials says leaving them in the ground wasn't an option.
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RALF MEYER, HEAD, COLOGNE PUBLIC ORDER OFFICE (through translator): They're not getting safer in the ground. The objects are exposed to vibrations here, which also shifts the ground.
In addition, the bomb is exposed to moisture and then corrosion damage, i.e. rust is the problem. This can lead to a dud exploding on its own. And these are situations that we have to avoid.
That's why we always probe in advance of construction work. And we found three unexploded ordnance during our probing work. I don't think that's ever happened before.
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BRUNHUBER: All right. For more on this, we're joined by Sean Moorhouse, a consultant on explosive ordnance and its disposal, and he is here in Atlanta. Thank you so much for being up late with us here.
So, as we said in the introduction here, finding unexploded Second World War bombs in cities like Cologne and Berlin, it happens every so often. So explain what made this unusual.
SEAN MOORHOUSE, CONSULTANT, EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE AND DISPOSAL: I think This is unusual because you've got three large bombs all found together, all found at the same time. It's very common to find unexploded bombs and unexploded munitions all over Germany. But to find three large aircraft bombs together is very, very unusual indeed.
BRUNHUBER: All right. So before we get into the enormous challenge of defusing the bombs, I mean, getting everybody out of harm's way must have been a massive challenge as well -- some 20,000 people, you have businesses, hotels, schools. What -- The country's second biggest train station. Patience. Many people who wouldn't have wanted to leave, for example. So how difficult an operation was that?
MOORHOUSE: It's a -- it's a very, very difficult, very time consuming and it's a very complicated operation. And for the EOD operator on the ground, it's quite frustrating because they can't begin to work on these devices until it's safe to do so.
So you need to make sure that everybody is out of this safety and evacuation zone prior to actually commencing anything meaningful on the -- on the bombs themselves.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. To elaborate on that, I mean, even before they, they defused the bomb, they'd have to prepare in case one or more of the bombs went off, right?
MOORHOUSE: Well, the whole idea is that the bombs don't go off, but you have to plan for, you know, an accidental detonation. So that means digging trenches all around the bombs so that the ground shock wouldn't break any utility pipes, water and gas and so forth.
You have to pile up big walls of sand around it so that the shock wave in the air goes upwards instead of outwards. And that would also absorb the fragmentation from the heavy bomb cases.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. We're seeing pictures of these things. I mean just frightening just to look at. I mean, walk me through how bombs like those are defused.
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MOORHOUSE: Well, it depends, because there are -- there are different sorts of bombs. The ones -- the ones we saw in Cologne are this two 2,000-pound bombs and one 1,000-pound bomb.
They generally would be fitted with two fuses, one in the nose and one in the tail. And that's so if one fails, the other should detonate the bomb. Obviously in all three cases -- and that's another unusual thing -- both fuses failed in all three bombs. So that is highly unusual.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. All right. So we heard a little bit from the expert there going into this, about sort of these -- the condition of these bombs. But again, you know, one might think these bombs are 80, 85 years old. What makes them so dangerous still?
MOORHOUSE: Well, they can occasionally just detonate by themselves. So there was an incident last year in Germany when a very large bomb went off in a field with nobody near it, thankfully. So that does happen. But its highly unusual. I can -- I can talk to
London, where they have a map of hundreds of unexploded wartime bombs that they leave in the ground if they're deeper than five meters. Because the belief is that they're very, very unlikely to go off.
So all countries affected by aerial bombing will have, you know, a number of unexploded bombs in them.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, exactly, right. So given that there are still so many of them out there, as you say, some of them, they say better leave it there, they're fine. But in terms of the ongoing efforts to find them, what kind of role does technology play there?
MOORHOUSE: Well, in Germany, for example, you can't -- you can't start any sort of construction work without doing a survey for unexploded ordnance beforehand. And generally takes the form of looking at any mapping that's available that records the impact of these bombs.
It takes the form of using magnetometers, large metal detectors, to see if they can find any anomalies in the ground. But you cannot be 100 percent sure that there is not an aircraft bomb on site if there's a lot of other metal signals coming from, from buildings around and pipelines and that sort of thing.
BRUNHUBER: Yes. You imagine for example, A.I. might be used in the future to distinguish between some of those factors.
We'll have to leave it there. But in this case, thank goodness no one was hurt.
Really appreciate getting your insights on all this. Sean Moorhouse, thanks so much.
MOORHOUSE: Thanks very much indeed. All right.
BRUNHUBER: Well, doctors are warning that the mother of a British- Egyptian human rights activist is now at risk of dying. Laila Soueif is in critical condition and receiving urgent care in hospital after returning to a full hunger strike last month. She's trying to pressure the British government to help free her son detained in Egypt.
Nada Bashir has more.
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NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is Alaa Abdel Fattah, a British- Egyptian human rights activist and writer, seen here in his family home in Egypt back in 2011 being welcomed by friends and family shortly after his release from prison.
But his freedom would be short lived. Alaa was arrested once again in 2013 and jailed for over five years. He was later re-arrested in September 2019 and sentenced to a further five years behind bars in 2021.
He was charged with allegedly assaulting a police officer and spreading false news after sharing a Facebook post highlighting human rights abuses in Egypt's jails.
Alaa's detention has sparked a year's long campaign led by his family, who say he has been arbitrarily detained.
His mother, Laila Soueif has been at the heart of the campaign, holding regular vigils outside Downing Street, demanding that the British government do more to pressure Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to free Alaa from detention. And even embarking on a hunger strike in September when Alaa's family had expected him to be released after completing his sentence.
With some signs of progress, Laila was persuaded to shift to a partial hunger strike in March, surviving on just 200 calories a day. But her return to a full hunger strike in May has left her in a critical condition with doctors at London St. Thomas's Hospital now providing urgent care.
SANAA SEIF, ALAA ABDEL FATTAH'S SISTER: My mom has lost like half of her body weight. She looks like a totally different woman now.
[01:39:48]
SEIF: She also looks like she's aged 10 years in the past 7 months. And she's really putting her body on the line for Alaa's freedom.
BASHIR: Laila's hunger strike and gradual decline has been documented in videos filmed by the "Free Alaa" campaign.
LAILA SOUEIF, ALAA ABDEL FATTAH'S MOTHER: What hits me is when I actually see my body and my face. I look at my face in the mirror, it's so different.
BASHIR: While Laila's daughters have championed her campaign for Alaa's freedom, they fear she may not have much time left. It's a concern echoed by some lawmakers in Westminster who are calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take urgent action.
JOHN MCDONNELL, BRITISH MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: We think the only thing that will shift Sisi is direct representations from the Prime Minister again, but we've tried the carrot. Now we need more of the stick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I thank him for --
BASHIR: According to Downing Street, the Prime Minister raised Alaa's case directly with the Egyptian President in a recent call.
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: In this case, I have met Laila and given her my commitment to do everything I possibly can.
BASHIR: But as Laila's condition continues to deteriorate, campaigners are warning that a failure by the British government to intervene could not only cost Alaa's freedom, but also his mother's life.
SEIF: She's really convinced that Alaa will be free and will be with Khaled in Brighton with his son. She's just not sure whether she'll attend that or not. BASHIR: Nada, Bashir, CNN in London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Wildfires are raging across parts of Canada. The flames have already scorched one historic lodge and forced thousands of people to flee their homes.
We'll have details next here on CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: More than 200 wildfires are now burning across Canada, and fire officials say half of them are burning out of control. About 2 million hectares have burned so far.
Scores of wildfires have spread over the past few weeks. Most of the fires are burning in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Flames have driven thousands of people from their homes in Saskatchewan, destroying some 400 structures, including the historic Robertson Trading Post in La Ronge.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORDAN MCPHAIL, MEMBER, LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF SASKATCHEWAN: In my home community, I know that we lost a very big piece of history in Robertsons Trading Post. And we've heard of other local businesses and family homes lost yesterday.
The devastation is real.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Scientists have a new warning about the effect of climate change on the world's glaciers. They estimate glaciers will lose nearly 40 percent of their mass relative to their size in 2020 and there's nothing we can do about it.
CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam has more.
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DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A glacier's partial collapse buries a village in the Swiss Alps. Thankfully, its roughly 300 residents had already evacuated, but even the few homes that weren't engulfed by ice, mud and rock flooded in the aftermath. One resident is still missing.
DR. MYLENE JACQUEMART, GLACIOLOGY PROFESSOR, ETH ZURICH: What you see is just something that, like on paper, you knew could happen. But then when you see it, it just takes your breath away.
VAN DAM: Days earlier, cracking sounds within Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier a last second signal before an ice block the height of a 20-story building falls into the water below.
LUCAS RUIZ, ARGENTINE GLACIOLOGIST: Climate change is happening. It's present not only in the melting or retreat of glaciers but we also see it reflected in the instruments we have installed around the region.
VAN DAM: And last month, U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres issuing a warning to the Nepali government.
ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: Record temperatures have meant record glacier melt. Nepal today is on thin ice losing close to one-third of its size in just over 30.
VAN DAM: This phenomena mark a bleak, new reality. A new study says nearly 40 percent of the total mass of the world's glaciers is doomed, even if global temperatures stopped rising today.
With this irreversible trend likely to cause a 113-millimeter rise in global sea level, meaning more scenes like those in Switzerland and Argentina in all corners of the planet.
But that's assuming matters don't get worse. If world climate policies continue as they are, the study finds that 40 percent figure will jump to 76 percent. The difference between those numbers, one scientist says, is the difference between whether or not countries will be able to adapt to this glacier loss.
The study's authors don't want to be alarmist, but rather provide facts and spread an encouraging message. Co-leader Lillian Schuster told CNN her team wants to show we can preserve this glacier ice with every 10th of a degree less of global warming, a beacon of hope for a world prognosis that is nothing short of dire.
Derek Van Dam, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: A Japanese commercial spacecraft is hoping to make an upright lunar landing in the coming hours. Resilience launched on the same SpaceX rocket as Blue Ghost, made by a U.S. based company back in January. Blue Ghost made the first upright landing on the moon in March, but Resilience took a slower path to use less energy.
[01:49:52]
BRUNHUBER: Ispace, the Japanese company that made Resilience, says the trade-off for having to wait so long is that multiple teams were able to gain experience in mission control.
If Resilience lands upright, ispace will become the first commercial company outside of the U.S. to pull off such a feat.
Well, they've been sailing the world for five years and their adventure is only halfway through. Just ahead, meet the Dutch couple on the expedition of a lifetime.
Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: An aid ship hoping to reach Gaza is sailing through the Mediterranean Sea right now. Climate activist Greta Thunberg is among those on board. On Wednesday, she live streamed from the ship on the social media app Telegram.
Thunberg spoke with some of the others on board, including journalists, a member of the European parliament and "Game of Thrones" actor Liam Cunningham.
The group says it wants to break Israel's siege of Gaza, and plans to deliver food and other supplies.
A Dutch couple, who've been sailing the world for the past five years are setting sail on the next leg of their journey, crossing the Pacific Ocean to Japan.
Rebecca Palsha from our affiliate KTUU caught up with them in Alaska.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAN KAREL FIKKE, DUTCH TRAVELER: I'm Jan Karel Fikke and she's Sheila Fikke.
REBECCA PALSHA, KTUU REPORTER: It was a surprise to meet this couple and see their 64-foot sailboat in Adak.
J. FIKKE: There it is.
PALSHA: What does that mean?
J. FIKKE: Goose.
PALSHA: J.K. and Sheila Fikke left Holland nearly five years ago in July of 2020 to sail around the world.
SHEILA FIKKE, TRAVELER: The boat is fine. It's the crew that sometimes thinks, oh my God.
But normally, we're quite ok, actually. Otherwise I don't think we would have been doing this still, after five years.
J. FIKKE: It's like a house. It's our house.
S. FIKKE: No, it's not like -- it is our house. We sold everything to make this dream possible.
PALSHA: Come inside.
S. FIKKE: I'll show you.
PALSHA: Their home is amazing. It's tiny and cozy and sweet.
S. FIKKE: And here we have a large area where we can sit. PALSHA: We met the couple on their final day in America. From here in
Adak, they head to Japan.
J. FIKKE: We want to see different things again. So, the plan we made was following the Aleutians and going up Japan and then going to visit Japan for a couple of months or a year or perhaps more.
It's just like -- if we enjoy it, we'll stay longer. And if it's like we don't feel rest inside, we go. We go on and on and on.
PALSHA: It's been a wild trip, sailing across the Bering Sea from Sitka to Adak sounded scary.
S. FIKKE: Because it's the birthplace of the winds and because of all the islands. The weather prediction can be, say, like east and then you come at an island and it'll be totally west, and you're like, how is that possible?
J. FIKKE: The waves are horrible.
PALSHA: Great comfort came in finally making it to Adak, where spring has started and there's peace.
S. FIKKE: But here it's so quiet. And here we've -- the last few weeks we had some rough passages with a lot of waves going into each other, and the boat was banging, and we said to each other, what are we doing here?
J. FIKKE: And you know, the Bering Sea is -- it's quite a sea to go on.
[01:54:48]
S. FIKKE: It's also a gift.
When I first met him at when I was 17 and he was 21 or no -- 20. He said, when -- before I'm 50, I'm going to sail the world. And I was like, yes, right. Good plan.
J. FIKKE: Whales feeding just under the boats --
S. FIKKE: Bubble feeding.
J. FIKKE: -- like bubble feeding beside us.
S. FIKKE: Swimming under the boat.
J. FIKKE: You're the only one there.
S. FIKKE: Yes.
J. FIKKE: And so it's a real different kind of enjoying it, being there in nature with this incredible animals.
PALSHA: Then just a few hours later -- as the sun begins to rise.
S. FIKKE: Have a wonderful journey. Saying goodbye to the America or at least the U.S.
PALSHA: Can you send me a picture of the crew?
S. FIKKE: 100 percent.
PALSHA: Its only for our own --
S. FIKKE: Of course. Of course.
PALSHA: As quickly as we'd met them, they were off to continue their round the world adventure, leaving Adak's harbor just like U.S. naval vessels stationed here decades ago.
S. FIKKE: Bye. Safe travels.
PALSHA: Sailing past snow-capped volcanic mountains, Alaska's Aleutian chain. Next stop -- Japan.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: All right. Finally, this hour, some big name stars have reunited to help find a missing piece of Hollywood history. Look.
(MUSIC)
BRUNHUBER: Do you remember that cherry red Gibson guitar played by Marty McFly in the 1985 film "Back to the Future"? Well, it hasn't been seen in about 40 years.
The filmmakers tried to find it while making the sequel in 1989, but no luck. Unfortunately, there is no time machine that can help, so members of the cast are asking fans and collectors to keep an eye out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ask your friends. Ask your relatives. Ask your bandmates.
MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: If you know where it is. If you if you know who has it, call us. Text us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go to losttothefuture.com or call this 800 number below. We need your help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll make a hero out of you.
CHRISTOPHER LLOYD, ACTOR: We will all be so grateful.
FOX: Any time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Well, Gibson has launched a tip line, as you heard, and is making a documentary called "Lost to the Future" about the hunt for the guitar and the legacy of the film itself. Good luck.
All right. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
CNN NEWSROOM continues with Rosemary Church after a short break.
[01:57:21]
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