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U.S. Official: Technical Talks With Iran Still "On Track"; Putin Dismisses Kyiv's Proposal To Halt Long-Range Strikes; Migrants Flee Threats Of Xenophobic Violence In South Africa. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired June 29, 2026 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: As officials work to determine exactly what caused the crash.
[04:30:04]
Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, Paris.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: The World Cup knockout stage, it is off to quite the dramatic start after Canada eliminated South Africa on Sunday, becoming the first team to secure their spot in the round of 16. A last-ditch strike from Canada's Stephen Eustaquio, actually delivering the 1-0 win in the 92nd minute of play. It's Canada's first-ever knockout stage victory in the World Cup.
Next up for Canada, they will be the -- next up for Canada will be the winner of Monday's match between the Netherlands and Morocco. Brazil, Japan, Germany, Paraguay, they will also be fighting to keep their World Cup dreams alive on Monday.
Still to come an exchange of fire, testing a fragile truce. Ahead we'll be hearing from the International Crisis Group's Iran Project Director about the latest escalation, and also plans for more talks this week.
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SANDOVAL: Back now to developments in the Middle East. A Trump administration official says that the U.S. and Iran will, "stand down for now" after exchanging strikes over the weekend. That escalation taking place near the Strait of Hormuz, where the official says that vessels can now move through freely. Well, Iran hasn't weighed in on that matter. CNN's Julia Benbrook is following developments from Washington.
JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After days of escalation, the big question is, how does this impact the ongoing talks between the United States and Iran? A senior administration official tells me that those talks will continue as planned. Going on to say this, nothing has been canceled. Technical talks regarding the implementation of the MOU, the Memorandum of Understanding, are on track for the coming days as planned. And deconfliction channels are up and running after the Lake Lucerne Summit.
[04:35:19]
It was just last weekend that Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Switzerland to lead high-level, high-stakes talks. And a reminder that the Memorandum of Understanding, what has been agreed to by the United States and Iran, is really just a starting point. It kicked off a 60- day time period to work through the details on some of the big issues regarding Iran's nuclear program, including the fate of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
As the back-and-forth has taken place in recent days, one of the major developments came Saturday evening, as U.S. Central Command said that it had carried out additional strikes at the direction of the President on multiple targets in response to Iran's continued aggression. Now, Trump took to social media after that, saying that Iran may never learn, adding this, if that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, spoke with "Fox News" Sunday morning and reiterated that statement. Take a listen.
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MIKE WALTZ, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: If the Iranian regime thinks for a second that President Trump is going to sit by, stand by, while Iran continues to attack international shipping without a response or our bases without a response, they're sadly mistaken. And they saw that loud and clear over the last few nights, where we'll continue to militarily, if needed, take down their infrastructure that they're trying to use to illegally control an international waterway.
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BENBROOK: So, again, the administration tells CNN that talks will continue as planned on all sides of the MOU, adding that both sides will stand down for now and that vessels will continue to move freely.
Julia Benbrook, CNN, the White House.
SANDOVAL: And Iran says that a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon must be part of a final deal with the United States. Israel has previously rejected such a plan and on Sunday even approved continued military operations in southern Lebanon as it targets Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
In the last hour, Ali Vaez is the director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group weighed in and said this.
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ALI VAEZ, DIRECTOR, IRAN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: For the Iranians, it's hard to restrain Hezbollah when Israel is actually occupying the southern parts of Lebanon. And for Israel, it's also hard to accept withdrawing from southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah is not disarmed. So it is a little bit of a zero-sum situation that neither side can really force their regional allies to stop. So I think best-case scenario is that we would see low-level conflict in Lebanon and the benefits that the Iranians would get out of the MOU is sufficient to outweigh the small violations that you would see with the exchange of fire in Lebanon. I don't see a real solution that could really get this to a stable situation so that Lebanon doesn't adversely affect these negotiations.
SANDOVAL: Yes, that's actually really interesting, is neither side, based on your assessment, would be willing to make that initial concessment, be it the Israelis would agree to pull back or, of course, Hezbollah would also agree to stop targeting Israel. And then just when you look at the weekend of strikes, Ali, do you think that Iran may be thinking that it's actually winning, given that it is yet to back down on any of its core issues and demands?
VAEZ: Well, they certainly think that they have the upper hand, that the U.S., because the President really wants the Strait to be fully open and for energy prices to climb down in the run-up to the midterms, that this is a moment that the Iranians have a lot of leverage and they should use that leverage in order to extract the kind of concessions they want to in the final agreement. But one has to remember that they, too, are in a very difficult economic situation. They were in dire straits economically even before this war, and now they are really struggling.
So they also need the diplomatic track to remain open. But they are gambling a little bit more boldly because they do believe that President Trump doesn't want to go back into full-scale war and does need the Strait to remain open, so they believe that this is a moment of opportunity for them.
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[04:40:02]
SANDOVAL: The Ukrainians are currently working to clear rubble after Russia dropped guided missile bombs over the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. The attack on Sunday inflicted some heavy damage on this residential area you see here. Officials say that at least one person was killed and 14 others were injured, including two children. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also throwing some cold water on Ukraine's latest offer to de-escalate the ongoing hostilities.
Kyiv has proposed a mutual halt to long-range strikes. But on Sunday, President Putin appeared to dismiss the proposal, arguing that Russia's strikes are more powerful and that the Kremlin has no intention of, "salvaging the Kyiv regime." Let's go to CNN's Clare Sebastian, who's been tracking all of this. She joins me from London. So, Clare, bring us up to speed on the latest on Ukraine's pressure campaign on Crimea, but also the mounting strains on Putin. Is he vowing to essentially press on with his offensive?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, that certainly is the signaling that we're getting from those comments. He gave a wide- ranging interview on Sunday to a Russian state T.V. journalist, a guy who sort of follows Putin around quite a bit. It was not so much an interview, more of a sort of extended statement from Putin. But interesting that for the first time, really, in any kind of detail, he addressed the fact that we're now seeing fuel shortages spreading in Russia, not just in Crimea, which, of course, declared a state of emergency because of fuel shortages and rolling blackouts after sustained Ukrainian attacks at the end of last week.
Now we're seeing fuel shortages well beyond that across multiple regions in Russia. We're even seeing lines outside gas stations in Moscow as people queue up for those. I don't know if we can show you. We have some CNN footage shot over the weekend of a long line outside a gas station, not far from Putin's country residence just outside Moscow. So the calculation may be now from the Russian president that he cannot ignore, that it's counterproductive to ignore what's happening here, that he had to address it. He sort of played it down a little bit.
He said that the level of Russian fuel reserves is not that much lower than it was this time last year. He called for additional air defenses. But, frankly, this has been going on for months now. Russia has had to deal with these attacks on refineries since 2023 and really in a much more sustained way for the best part of the last nine months. So this may perhaps feel to the Russian people like he's coming in on this a little late. But his messaging, I think, is interesting.
He really tried to play up the idea that Ukraine is hitting critical civilian infrastructure here and that it's not going to make a difference on the front lines, I think, because as a counterpoint to that, Ukraine's messaging with these long-range drone attacks is not just about the physical damage caused to Russia and the Russian economy. It's about diluting that Russian narrative of inevitable victory, particularly in the eyes of the U.S. President, who we know has recently shifted his stance a little bit to be more favorable to Ukraine. Polo?
SANDOVAL: And, Clare, shifting to an upcoming meeting there, as you know, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte meeting with Keir Starmer a little later today. This is just days after the U.K. prime minister announced his resignation. So what could come out of this?
SEBASTIAN: Yes, look, I think there could be some difficult conversations here. This is days after, of course, a week after. It feels like a very long week, but a week after he announced his resignation, a couple of weeks after the U.K. defense minister resigned in a very damning way for the prime minister saying that he had not allocated enough funding to defense and that he was failing to protect the country. The armed forces minister also resigned at the same time for the same issue.
And, obviously, this comes just over a week before a critical NATO summit involving U.S. President Trump. It will be essentially a report card on that 5 percent spending pledge that NATO members made last year in response to calls from the U.S. President to do that. And the fact that the U.K. is now facing criticism from within its own government about failing to meet those standards, that I think is going to lead to some difficult conversations today. But certainly one to watch as we see all this political turmoil here in the U.K. Paolo?
SANDOVAL: CNN's Clare Sebastian, live from London, where it's already Monday morning. Thank you so much, Clare. I'm grateful for your reporting.
[04:44:22]
And after the break here on CNN Newsroom, a live report from Johannesburg, South Africa, where right now there are thousands of migrant workers who are attempting to flee the country over growing fears of xenophobic mass violence. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
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SANDOVAL: Right now, thousands of migrants are trying to flee South Africa. The country remains on edge after months of anti-migrant rhetoric and also growing threats of xenophobic violence. There's some huge queues that have been forming outside of places like consulates, repatriation centers, and also the country's borders, as some of these foreign workers are in a race to leave ahead of a deadline that was set by anti-immigrant groups. And that deadline is set to expire on Tuesday, following months of anti-immigration demonstrations.
The South African government has condemned any sort of xenophobic attacks and says that security forces are on high alert. But that's a little to calm the fears of the migrant population. Let's go live now to CNN's correspondent Larry Madowo, who joins me live outside of the Malawi consulate in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Larry, I mean, it's very clear, just based on the surroundings and the people behind you, that these attempted assurances from the government aren't going very far.
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These people are scared, Polo. That's why they're here outside the Malawian embassy, hundreds of them, men, women, and their kids. There's more than 30 kids here. And what's happening right now is they're getting breakfast. This is provided by the neighbors here, by charities supporting them. Some of them have been here for the past few days, trying to get on buses back to Malawi. It's a slow process.
And especially Malawi has had to deal with thousands of their migrants who are in South Africa, who feel scared and can no longer live in the country. A lot of the people you see here have been working low-wage, unskilled jobs, gardeners, security guards, delivery drivers, nannies, househelps. That sort of job, that they don't have a lot of security. And that's part of the concern here in South Africa, that they accept lower wages than South Africans. They don't have any labor or union protections. And they are straining the resources of South Africa, where unemployment is already quite high.
And so what's happening here is they're spending another day here, hoping that by the end of the day they can get on buses back to Malawi, because that deadline is on Tuesday, tomorrow. And anti- migrant groups are planning marches across the country to warn migrants that their time is up, that they have to leave the country. And there's a lot of fear within migrant communities here, Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Malawians, Tanzanians, et cetera, many of whom have been trying to make their way out of the country. Listen to these two African migrants here.
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[04:50:04]
AMINA CHIWOKO, ZIMBABWEAN MIGRANT: I'm not happy. I leave my property and some of my money now, I didn't get paid because of this thing. We couldn't go to our buses to collect our money.
EBRAHIM MOOSA, MALAWIAN MIGRANT (through translator): We are scared because you never know what people are planning to do to you. It's not right to wait and see what will happen, as long as we know that June 30th we must act.
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MADOWO: Several African countries have begun repatriating their citizens out of South Africa. Malawi is just one of them. Uganda announced Sunday they will be doing the same. Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique are some of the other African countries that are working to move the citizens out of the country and criticizing the South African government for not doing enough to keep them safe.
The South African government says it is not xenophobic, despite the accusations from many of these African countries that it's not only xenophobia but it's also Afrophobia and that South Africa has forgotten its history during apartheid when many African nations supported the movement here to free the country. But that is a backdrop for this major mass action expected on Tuesday, Polo.
SANDOVAL: Yes, it's absolutely awful that a mere threat is enough to move all of those people behind you away from their homes. Larry Madowo, thank you so much for that live report from Johannesburg.
Police did find the remains of at least 117 dogs on the grounds of a California animal shelter that purported to have a no-kill policy. They said that many of the animals had been shot. According to investigators, hundreds of bones, 21 canine skulls and other remains were found at Miranda's Rescue Animal Sanctuary in the city of Fortuna. While investigators searched the property after receiving allegations of animal abuse there, more than 600 dog collars were found. No charges have been filed yet.
We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.
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[04:55:41]
SANDOVAL: Welcome back. Major cities here in the United States and all around the world celebrated Pride this weekend. Let's start in New York City. It held its annual Pride Parade on Sunday. Many see it as a march. The parade commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which started the modern LGBTQ plus movement.
More than a million people participating this year, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And we also want to show you the Pride Parade in Minneapolis, Minnesota. That's where 100,000 people were expected to attend. Some heavy rain did delay the event, but did not dampen the mood or the spirits of those out there celebrating.
And in Seattle, Washington, more than 250 groups participated in this year's events. And then in San Francisco, they celebrated its 56th annual Pride Day Parade.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's all about finding community. It's all about going to where you're wanted, going to where you're accepted, going to where you're loved. Coming to a place like San Francisco or trying to find more outings and events like this is really the place to find people that you really care about and people that really care about you as well.
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SANDOVAL: And around the globe, also many countries holding their celebrations. Mexico City, Chile and Peru held their Pride marches while India's LGBT community also celebrating with a parade of their own. You see folks there.
Thank you so much. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Our coverage continues next.
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