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CNN Visits Congo's Hot Zones To Investigate Future Contagion; CNN Speaks To Author Of "Spillover" Pandemic Book; Many Countries Banning Travel From U.K. Over COVID Variant; Trump Pardons Blackwater Guards Convicted In Iraq Massacre; Dubai Begins Coronavirus Vaccine Rollout; It Will Be Busy 2021 For The United Arab Emirates. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired December 23, 2020 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: The border between the France and the UK is finally open but the backlog of trucks may take days to clear. At
least frustration boiled over as drivers rushed to get through before Christmas. Plus, after weeks of negotiation on Capitol Hill, President
Trump is threatening to block the Coronavirus relief bill demanding congress give the American people larger stimulus checks.
And the world battles the Coronavirus. CNN goes inside the Congo rain forest to uncover which pathogens pose the next global threat. Hello. I'm
Max Foster in London in for Becky Anderson. This is CONNECT THE WORLD.
We begin with some big news out of the UK new restrictions in the south and east of England as COVID cases surge and a frightening new Coronavirus
variant entering the country. Last hour the British Health Secretary Matt Hancock said two cases of these latest variants have been detected, and in
both cases they were linked to someone who traveled from South Africa.
This is a second new variant found in the UK. Hancock says it's especially concerning because it's even more transmissible. In Dover trucks are
finally crossing between the UK and France after thousands of people were stranded without food or rest rooms on the border.
It's a backlog that will take days to clear according to the UK Housing Secretary at least and even as the world begins to distribute vaccines, the
number of people infected and put in hospital continues to climb with places like the U.S. breaking new records every single day, and, of course,
we've all been warned.
The situation will only get worse after holiday travel, but as we cope with this continuing pandemic, scientists already on the lookout for the next
contagion as the protective barrier between animals and humans, the rain forest, is weakened. Sam Kylie who traveled to Congo for this exclusive
report joins us now from East Anglia.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Max, I wish I had better news in this week before Christmas, a time normally of family
celebrating together that not being possible for very, very large numbers of people across the world because of a zoonotic disease, a disease, COVID-
19 that somewhere in the infection chain jumped from human beings to animals.
It's not by any stretch of the imagine national the first and sadly as we discovered in the Congo experts there believe it's certainly not the last
of this sort of pathogen. This is what we found. The pristine wilderness is under threat. The environmental disaster here could lead to a human
apocalypse because locked up in the forests are reservoirs of potentially deadly contagions, some perhaps more dangerous than we've ever seen before.
400 miles upriver from the Democratic Republic of Congo's Capital has been struck by a recent outbreak of the killer Ebola virus. It's killed 3 out of
11 patients here, but doctor fear that they have stumbled on a new virus for which there may be neither treatment nor cure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. CHRISTIAN BOMPALANGA, MEDICAL CHIEF, INGENDE ZONE: We have to do more to figure out what's going on.
KILEY (on camera): So doctors just told me that one of their immediate concerns is that they are getting cases now that present symptoms that are
similar to Ebola, but when they test them in the laboratory here, they are coming up negative.
This patient has Ebola symptoms, but she's tested negative. She's one of two victims here who may be fighting a disease never encountered before. I
asked the doctor if he was worried about new diseases emerging.
DR. DADIN BONKOLE, PHYSICIAN TREATING EBOLA: Yes, indeed. We should be afraid. That was how Ebola came. It was unknown, an unknown disease and
then after tests it turned out to be a virus.
KILEY (voice over): Treatments and a vaccine for Ebola now means that while it's often deadly more patients do survive, but medicine will never keep up
with new diseases emerging from the wilderness. The patients here did survive, but tests for known illnesses were all negative, so her disease
remains a mystery.
Doctors worry that more zoonotic diseases like Ebola, HIV/AIDS, SARS, MERS and COVID-19 will emerge and make that jump from animals to humans. Ingende
on the River Ruki is deep in the Congo basin.
[11:05:00]
KILEY (voice over): It's accessible only by boat, but that's how a virus can travel to big cities like - to the country's Capital Kinshasa and into
the global bloodstream. Mbandaka has been at the epicenter of this latest fight against Ebola which killed 55 people in the province.
KILEY (on camera): Here in Mbandaka they are battling with the fifth local outbreak of the Ebola virus which is on its 11th here in the Congo. They
are getting a grip on it, they believe, but they are also concerned about finding unknown viruses that have emerged from the forest, just like Ebola.
KILEY (voice over): The scientists here have limited funds but they know their work is essential to protect their own country and the rest of
humanity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we don't have all this in place you can imagine there are nightmare scenario where you just have a vast epidemic with many cases
leading to huge mortality and morbidity.
KILEY (voice over): More than 100 new viruses have been discovered in the DRC over a decade including many Coronaviruses in bats. So it's bats that
get tracked. Bats are linked to many zoonotic diseases, notably COVID-19 and Ebola.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now we need to put it in the capture bag. You have to be really careful or they bite.
KILEY (on camera): The virologists have told us why they haven't found the Ebola virus itself inside them they have found the antibodies so these are
a sentinel species, an early warning system for humanity. It could prove fatal, start an epidemic or worse, sort could a cross-infection from
unknown hosts from bats to chicken to children.
About 80 bats are swabbed and tested for COVID and Ebola and then the samples are sent to Kinshasa for more investigation. Most of them survive
capture and are returned to the wild. The Congo's population has almost doubled in two decades to around 90 million.
This puts the forest under strain and closes the gap between people and the new diseases that could kill them. The scale of the destruction of the rain
forest here in the Congo is not yet on the scale that we've seen in the Amazon.
A great deal of it is a result of local farmers who clear the land and then farm it for few years. The problem is that that causes fragmentation of the
rain forest, increasing the surface area between the forest and humanity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is a forest.
KILEY (voice over): Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe is an expert in emerging diseases. He's been tracking them since he discovered Ebola in 1976, and
now he has a warning for us all.
JEAN-JACQUES MUYEMBE TAMFUM, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE CONGO: So it's become an outbreak.
KILEY (on camera): Are you afraid that there is going to be more emerging diseases coming out of the forest, something that is perhaps - spreads like
COVID but kills like Ebola?
MUYEMBE TAMFUM: We are now in a world where new pathogens will come out. That's what constitutes a threat for humanity, and - and as you know most
of these disease emerge from Africa.
KILEY (voice over): And this in the Congo is how viruses mostly travel. The River Congo is the great artery that gives life to the whole nation, but
it's also the route by which the results of deforestation are exported. Like these smoked monkeys being sold for food.
I film undercover because traders here and protected species fear exposure. Adams Cassinga is my guide. Once subsistence food, now bush meat is an
international luxury commodity. And so that's no problem. There's an agency for that, a protected species, the monkeys' heads and arms have to be cut
off to disguise them with antelope meat.
ADAMS CASSINGA, WILDLIFE CRIME INVESTIGATOR, CONSERV CONGO: We have experienced an influx of expatriates, mainly from Southeast Asia, who
demand to eat certain types of meat such as turtle, snakes, primates.
KILEY (voice over): The U.N. estimates that some 5 million tons of wild meat are harvested every year from the Congo basin. But the most potent
source of viruses is live animals. They carry the viruses and can infect when they are butchered or petted in private zoos. Live animals and bush
meat are part of a multi-billion dollar global trade that's a cause and a symptom of ecological disaster.
[11:10:00]
KILEY (voice over): Combined with logging and industrial pressure, untold numbers of potential infections could be released and now it's as if nature
has found a way to protect itself that locked up in the armory of the forest is a weapon against the planet's most deadly threat, humankind, and
if so this abandoned palace of a long dead dictator isn't a relic of the past. It's a vision of what the planet looks like when mother earth fights
back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KILEY: Now the consensus, the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion of both in academic papers that we researched for this film but also
talking to world famous virologists like Professor Muyembe on the ground is that the next pandemic isn't a question of if but, when?
And those people out there on the front lines in the rain forest are going to be the very first people that can alert the rest of the world about some
new virus so it's bad news at Christmas time, Max.
FOSTER: Yes, a fascinating report there Sam, thank you very much to you for that. I want to bring in Author David Quammen now he is a Science and
Nature Writer and the Author of "Spillover: Animal infections and the next human pandemic" contrast from Bozeman, Montana. Thank you so much for
joining us.
I don't know how much of the report you were able to see but this is all sort of information you've known for a very long time, you've studied it,
but now at least the wider world is engaging in this sort of science.
DAVID QUAMMEN, AUTHOR, "SPILLOVER: ANIMAL INFECTIONS AND THE NEXT HUMAN PANDEMIC": Absolutely, yes. I watched Sam Kylie's whole report that gave me
a sense of deja vu. All of it is very accurate, very urgently important, and we've known about it for a long time.
FOSTER: What positivity is coming out from the pandemic for you in terms of awareness about viruses and the world responding to them?
QUAMMEN: Well, I think people are more and more recognizing that these events are not one-off events, that they are part of a pattern. That
pattern reflects things that we're doing it. As Sam Kylie said we're disrupting diverse eco-systems including the tropical forests that are
filled with animals, many species of wild animals and all of those wild animals carry viruses, carry unique kind of viruses and as we disrupt those
eco-systems we exposure ourselves to those viruses to give them the opportunity to spill over into humans and COVID-19 will not be the last of
them.
FOSTER: So obviously governments around the world spending billions and billions of dollars in vaccine research for example responding to the
current virus. Then we get caught out by new virus that emerges here in the UK for example do you think that money would be better spent arguably in
trying to address some of the issues that Sam highlighted in this report rather than fire fighting all the time?
QUAMMEN: No, I think we need to spend the money on both of those things. We need to spend money on pandemic preparedness which many governments failed
to do in the run up to COVID-19 but we also need to spend the money on response developing therapeutics and vaccines as we've been doing.
To spend $20 billion on pandemic preparedness sounds like a lot of money if you think that the pandemic will not occur between now and the next
election that you face as a politician, but it's - its peanuts. It's nothing compared to the costs of COVID-19, the trillions of dollars that
this pandemic is costing governments and economies around the world so we need to be spending money on both of those dimensions.
FOSTER: It's frankly engrained issue as well, cultural issue of some people effectively causing the problem by being customers of these trades. How
have you tackled that? Have you gotten any ideas? We've been trying for years.
QUAMMEN: Yes. Absolutely, capturing wild animals and transporting them live to markets or even, you know, as carcasses of smoked monkeys to markets is
an excellent way of exposing humans to the viruses that the wild animals carry, so constraining the trade in wild animals brought live to markets is
a very important part of this, a very important part of prevention.
But it should be said it's not the only important part. There will are lots of things that all of us do, even those of us who don't eat monkeys, who
don't eat bats. There are lots of things that we do as consumers that also bring people, our proxies who are perhaps mining or logging in tropical
forests, brings them into context with these dangerous viruses.
So it's the human population, human consumption and human disruption of wild eco-systems in whatever forms that are bringing these viruses into the
human population.
FOSTER: One of the core challenges though is when governments do have success in cutting back on this trade, the products become rarer and more
sought after, so it's very hard to get it right without addressing why people want them in the first place, isn't it?
[11:15:00]
QUAMMEN: It is hard to get it right. It certainly is, and it's important to recognize that there are - there are at least two forms of demand on the
wild animals that sometimes quarry viruses to humans. One of those is subsistence demand.
People in forested areas, in villages in Central Africa, they need protein, and they may not have access to any norm of protein except wildly. I live
in Montana. We eat wildlife here, too. We call it game, deer and elk, but when people in Africa do it we call it bush meat and it carries an unjust
onus to it.
FOSTER: OK.
QUAMMEN: But there's also luxury - luxury demand for these wild - wild animals, and that's something that really needs to be controlled at the
international scale. It's a commercial enterprise, and it needs to be stopped.
FOSTER: Absolutely. David, appreciate your time today. Thank you very much indeed.
QUAMMEN: You're very welcome.
FOSTER: Do be sure to join us for a deeper look at this. Sam Kylie returns with a half hour CNN special really worth watching. "The Coming Contagion"
airs Thursday 3:30 pm in New York 8:30 pm in London only here on CNN.
Now thousands of truckers remain stranded in the UK even after a deal was reached to get the rolling into France ahead, anger and frustration as
those truckers wait to get COVID tests that will allow them to move on at last.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Welcome, a few trucks have finally arrived in France and the UK but the tense waiting game at the Port of Dover continues in frustration really
is boiling over. Thousands of truckers remain stranded desperate to leave the port and head to France.
An agreement reached late Tuesday allows truckers along with French citizens and UK nationals with French residency to enter France if they
test negative for COVID-19. The British government has activated a testing center near the Marston Airport where thousands of trucks ended up. Another
center could open at Dover later today.
The UK military personnel will help with the testing but officials warn it's a slow process that could take time to complete. Salma Abdelaziz is at
the Port in Dover it's been a long frustrating day there, and they are at least trying to get things moving but I gather they have to create a
testing station at the front of queue at Dover in order to free it up because people won't leave.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Max. I'm just going to update you on what's happened here just in the last hour. What we saw is a couple
of buses and a few vehicles with people in high-vis jackets, medical workers we believe are arriving here to begin testing people, and you can
see that sign behind me.
They just put that up just in the last couple of minutes. Get back to your vehicles testing to commence. So here's what we know. We know that the plan
is for health care workers to test the drivers as they sit in their vehicles, as they sit in their cab.
[11:20:00]
ABDELAZIZ: They are going to be using these lateral flow tests which should only take 30 minutes. They will take the mobile numbers, the cell phone
numbers of these drivers and they will text them with a negative result. If they are negative and then will take that result that they are texted on
their phone and they will be able to drive through their border, that's the plan if it all goes well but the day has gone very far from well.
I mean, we've been here since 6:00 am local time, it's been a ten hour standoff finally some sort of resolution. I know we have pictures from
earlier today when these stranded truckers got so frustrated they essentially started marching toward the police line behind me here and
tried to shove their way through.
The police responded by calling in reinforcements and shutting down the entry to the port. Now finally a resolution, but we're talking about a few
dozen health care workers, and I can only imagine a miles long queue, hundreds upon hundreds of truck drivers night is descending upon us, so
they have a very difficult task ahead of them to get everyone who has been rightfully frustrated for ten hours now during this standoff, to get back
to their vehicles and to sit and to wait for their tests to administer these tests to each of these truckers in this miles-long queue.
We know from UK officials that this is going to take days to unblock. Ten thousand truckers, according to some estimates distributed all over this
area. Meanwhile Max, they will be on these streets living without access to food, water, sanitation. It's truly dire conditions. Max?
FOSTER: An extraordinary part of the story came today when Lufthansa tweeted that they're using a refrigerated plane, I'm not quite
understanding the technology but using a particular type of plane to fly in fresh produce into the UK because it's obviously not getting through the
port where you are.
Quite an extraordinary distribution that food aid is actually being flown into the UK from Germany but what sorts of things are in the truck that are
lined up there, this is important stuff isn't it?
ABDELAZIZ: This is extremely important. I mean, we're talking about the health and safety of thousands of drivers but it's also that the very
critical job that these drivers do keeping this supply route one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world open.
And this is winter so the UK is even more reliant on fresh food fresh produce. Grocers are saying that 40 percent of the goods that the UK gets
come from here essentially, from imports and exports so a real concern about what the authorities are going to do. But it's not just food it's not
just that. It's also medicine.
I spoke to a trucker earlier today; his name was Gregg he is from Poland. He was delivering respirators, ventilators during the pandemic to London
and he broke down when I asked him what he was going to do? Was he is going to make it home for Christmas? He broke down and he said I was delivering
ventilators and this is my reward. I'm going to miss Christmas with my family. I'm stuck on the border. This is my reward. Max?
FOSTER: Salma, horrible stories. Thank you very much for joining us from Dover in England. Peter Drobac joins me now to talk more about the
Coronavirus variant at the root of all of this chaos. He's an Infectious Disease and Global Health Expert at the University of Oxford.
I appreciate your time, you're learning more everyday aren't you? So what's the latest on the new variant? I know there is a new, new there in, but
let's talk about the one that we've been living with for a few days now?
PETER DROBAC, INFECTIOUS DISEASE & GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD: Yes, thank you for having me. So we know about this new variant
that there's good evidence coming in that this variant is much more transmissible or infectious than the other predominant circulating
variants, up to 70 percent higher rates of transmission which means it passes more easily from person to person.
We know that both from modeling studies where we've seen a quick rise in the number of cases caused by this new variant relative to others and then
also from studies that demonstrate that people infected with this new variant have higher levels of the viral load relative to others which we've
suggested them more contagious.
Now there is no evidence that this new variant actually is more virulent that it makes people sicker but of course if it spreads more quickly and
causes more cases ultimately we would expect to see more hospitalizations and ultimately more deaths.
FOSTER: We've seen the situation that Salma was describing down in Dover. We've seen the situation at airports in the UK the way these travel bans
have come into effect but not every country now is banning travel from the UK. The United States, for example, because many experts there are saying
it's pretty pointless because the virus is probably everywhere already, it's just been picked up sooner in the UK.
DROBAC: You know there may be true I think role of border closures is one that's controversial but it needs to be thought of as just one of a
comprehensive set of measures that we need to be considering. So it is true actually there is a phenomenal genomic surveillance program in place here
in the UK.
[11:25:00]
DROBAC: The UK alone does more sort of genomic surveillance of variants than almost all the rest of the world combined. So we are able to pick
things up here that other countries aren't. And it's very possible that this variant or others like it might be circulating in many other places
already.
We just don't know so we're acting based on the limited information that we have. What needs to be kept in mind is that we do need to thing about smart
controls to prevent the spread of dangerous variants like this across borders but we also need to really reinforce our efforts to control the
spread of the virus generally within our borders.
FOSTER: I don't want to put you on the spot but in the last hour we heard from the health secretary that a new variant has been discovered in the UK,
its linked with travel to South Africa and even more transmissive than the new variant that you're just talking about that there. This is going to
keep happening, isn't it? What worries you about the pace of these new variants and the sort of nature that they seem to have?
DROBAC: So last week around the first time that we learned about this new variant here in the UK there were reports of a variant that actually looks
fairly similar and has similar properties that's highly transmissible in South Africa. That one appeared to sort of evolve independently of the
variant in the UK.
So we were aware of that, and what we heard today was that a couple of cases of infections with that South African variant were identified here in
the UK. Again, we have information in the UK because we have such good surveillance here but that really does raise concern about where else both
of these variants and even others that we don't know about may be spreading.
FOSTER: OK. Peter Drobac at the University of Oxford thank you very much indeed for your insight. Now President Trump throws a roadblock in the way
of financial aid for millions of Americans. The U.S. President is attacking a COVID relief bill just passed by congress. Why he's furious about it
next?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm asking congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculous--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: As Congressional Republicans and Democrats battled over providing a second round of aid for millions of Americans and businesses hit by the
Coronavirus pandemic we will not anymore. President Donald Trump is now attacking the $900 billion COVID relief bill just passed by the U.S. Senate
and House.
He says the $600 direct payments to Americans should be ramped up to $2,000, and he's signaling he might veto it and the $1 trillion spending
package that would keep the government running.
[11:30:00]
FOSTER: U.S. House Speaker, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi responded swiftly to the president's demand to increase direct payments to $2,000
saying she will bring a measure on that to the House on Thursday. Joining me now for more on this CNN White House Correspondent John Harwood just
explain what this means for the bill, John?
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know yet, Max. The one thing we know is that the president has never been a serious part
of this legislation and he's not seriously trying to improve the legislation now.
What we have not been able to determine is whether he's simply making noise out of his frustration at losing the election to Joe Biden, wanting people
to pay attention to him when they are starting to focus their attention in Washington on Joe Biden, whether he's trying to make himself look good at
expense of others or is he actually trying to take this legislation down which, of course, would be a terrible news for millions of Americans who
are waiting for this relief, it will be terrible news for financial markets, and it would be bad for the economy overall.
If he intended to veto the bill, the - the Republicans and Democrats had more than enough votes to override a veto, but its one thing when you
initially vote for a bill. If this president given the grip he has over the Republican base actually tried to sustain a veto, we don't know where those
votes would lie.
There's also a more arcane way that the president could veto the bill is by not actually vetoing it but letting the congress expire without signing the
bill. That would cause not only the loss of that COVID relief it would cause a government shutdown in Washington. This is a president who can be
destructive if he wants to, and we're going to find out pretty soon how destructive he wants to be?
FOSTER: John, thank you. Now, President Trump's decision to pardon the four Blackwater guards convicted in a deadly mass shooting in Iraq is sparking
fury amongst the 17 victims of the 2007 massacre in Baghdad two boys, just 9 and 11 years old.
A survivor tells CNN the president's pardons are unjust and he calls the pardon security contractors terrorists. CNN's Senior International
Correspondent Arwa Damon joins me now. What do you make of it, Arwa?
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's just - it's absolutely devastating and gutting and it is infuriating, not just for the
families who lost loved ones in this massacre or those who survived but this is something that is really being felt across the entire population.
Because, Max, when this happened, you know, back in September of 2007 when these Blackwater guards opened fire killing 17 Iraqi civilians and wounding
about two dozen more, there was such anger at the senselessness and needlessness of it.
You have to remember that this was a time when, yes, Baghdad was fairly lawless, but these security companies used to drive around the streets as
if they were the ultimate power and authority with complete and total impunity.
They had no regard for anything or anyone that was in their way. They were known to be very trigger happy, and Blackwater was by far the worst
offender out of all of these security companies, and - and for those who did survive this and for those who lost loved ones, they waited so long for
justice, Max.
They waited seven years for these four Blackwater security contractors to get sentenced. One was meant to be serving life in prison and the other
three got 30 years and now they are going to walk free and the other issue at the very core of this, too, is that for so long, since the U.S.-led
invasion, Iraqis have by and large felt as if their lives are worthless at least in America's perspective, and what this does now it just validates
that belief.
FOSTER: What sort of response might we get? Is there any way of coming back on this, do you think?
DAMON: I mean, the Iraqi government has yet to come out and actually say anything about this, but we are hearing from a number of the survivors,
some of whom actually went to the U.S. to testify in these trials, and one of them was talking about how when he went to America back in 2014 he felt
as if he could have faith in the American justice system.
As if there would be at least be justice in that sense, not that anything was going to bring back loved ones or alter what would happen, and now that
faith is gone.
[11:35:00]
DAMON: That faith has gone in the U.S. justice system in the sense that there's going to be accountability for these types of crimes if murderers
are able walk free. Another survivor there we spoke to who you quoted at the beginning who was saying that it was the Blackwater security guards who
were the terrorist - happening was unjust.
He had also gone to the United States to testify and, you know, he's gutted. He's angry, and all these years later to have this semblance, the
sense of justice just snatched away from them. I mean, it's devastating, Max.
FOSTER: OK. Arwa Damon in Istanbul, thank you. Israel in the midst of more political turmoil hours after the Israeli Parliament dissolved itself. The
country's unity government lasted only seven months. The collapse was complete at midnight when a budget deadline came and went without
agreement.
Back in April Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined rival Benny Gantz in what was described in an emergency unity government snap election is now
set for March. The Israeli voters will be heading back to the polls for the fourth time in less than two years.
Dan Shapiro served as U.S. Ambassador to Israel during Barack Obama's Administration and knows the players in the region. He joins us via Skype.
Thank you so much for joining us. Was there no way of avoiding this, do you think?
DAN SHAPIRO, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: This coalition government or unity government as it was called took place after three inconclusive
elections and kind of political exhaustion has set in on the public and on the politicians and also just as the Coronavirus was arriving in Israel in
March.
And so in an attempt to prevent a fourth election these two parties which really didn't have very much in common and which had really sworn they
would never sit together Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud Party and Benny Gantz Blue & White Party did try to form a unity government but it was
pretty well doomed from the beginning.
It called for 18 months of Prime Minister Netanyahu continuing to serve in that office and then a rotation in which Benny Gantz would succeed him as
Prime Minister and most Israelis felt from the beginning that the Prime Minister Netanyahu didn't intend to see the government through to that 18
month period and give up the seat in the rotation. So it was living on borrowed time really from its creation and sure enough the deadline came
and went and the fourth election has now arrived.
FOSTER: We're looking again at another unity government going forward. Is there any sense of what that might look like? How are the players
maneuvering themselves at this point?
SHAPIRO: Well, it's very early to judge. Typically when an Israeli government collapse is there is a serious of moves where parties split
apart and some parties appeared that they will fall below the electoral threshold and would not even make it into the Knesset.
There also the appearances of new parties and there is one very significant new party on the horizon a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud Party
- who had previously challenged him for the leadership and failed has now decided he is going to run in his own separate right-wing party right of
senator and even may be right of the Likud Party.
But challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's continued rule particularly because of the corruption trials that Prime Minister will be
entering into early next year but as the polls indicate in the early stages and again with a lot of maneuvering still ahead it doesn't appeared that
any party as a natural 61 seat coalition and it may be that nobody can form 61 seat coalition without putting together once again parties who have
significant ideological or even personal political differences.
And so one possibility is another very unstable so-called unity government but really one that may not lost that long and another possibility is yet
another election soon after the upcoming election.
FOSTER: Just what do you hear from Washington in terms of where their support is starting to fall?
SHAPIRO: Well, it is hard to say about the Trump Administration I think. President Trump is rather preoccupied in his last-ditch efforts,
unsuccessful as they will be, to try to hold on to power. And I suspect that the Biden transition will simply keep its focus on getting its cabinet
appointed and once in office a President Biden would look to Israel as a democratic ally undergoing its own democratic political processes.
And wait until that's completed and obviously be prepared to work in close coordination with whoever the Israeli people select as their next leader.
FOSTER: OK. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, thank you very much indeed for joining us another busy months for you. Let's get you up to
speed on some other stories that are on our radar right now. Sources are telling CNN the European Union and the UK are close to Brexit deal but
they're yet and about the full.
[11:40:00]
FOSTER: An EU diplomat says both sides could announce an agreement soon but it hasn't been finalized. London and Brussels are trying to get a deal done
before the UK's Brexit transition period run out at the end of this month.
France's Interior Minister says a man suspected of killing three police officers has been found dead. The officers were shot and killed after
responding to a domestic violence call in Central France on Wednesday morning. A fourth officer was wounded in the attack.
Russia's parliament has advanced a bill to protect the privacy of its security service after it leaked phone and travel data led to two
investigations into the poisoning of Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny. If approved it would be illegal to reveal any personal details about Russian
security officers.
Airports across the U.S. are becoming to look a lot like Christmas and that's not the good thing right now. Why are so many willing to risk not
just their lives but the lives of their family and friends? Plus, India's first and only female chef to win the Michelin Star. How she's flying the
flag diversity through cuisine?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: All this week we're meeting Indian chefs from across the world that are changing the narrative around their nation's cuisine. Next up a chef
who is exploring India's diverse culinary map the pandemic may have put her travels on pause, but she's still finding ways to bring her food to the
world starting with the Southern Indian State where she was born.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Telangana the Southern Indian State with the ancient city of Hyderabad at its center. Steep in history its
monuments, bazaars and rich culinary influences gate back to the 16th century. According to the Hyderabad born chef Garima Arora the capital
offers just one taste of Telangana.
GARIMA ARORA, CHEF AND OWNER, GAA & HERE: The way urban Telangana eats to the rural Telangana to the tribal Telangana and each have a very strong
identity in terms of cuisine and in terms of ingredients and in terms of techniques even.
VANIER (voice over): Her newly renovated restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, Arora prepares authentic Indian cuisine with fresh local ingredients, so
far a recipe for success. Arora is the first and only Indian female chef to win a Michelin Star. She decided to use her platform to put the spotlight
on India's unchartered culinary disease.
ARORA: We started food forward in there which is a not-for-profit organization whose sole purpose is to rewrite this narrative around Indian
cooking.
VANIER (voice over): In mid-2019 Arora and her team set out to visit every state in India and map out their cuisines. Telangana was first on the list.
ARORA: Telangana was a revelation. From the day one when we met the toddy tappers to the old school restaurants of the city.
[11:45:00]
VANIER (voice over): Back in Bangkok Arora is putting a fine dining twist on the millet roti filled with crab and coconut curry.
ARORA: Well, we have here is a cold curry; it's just recreating that sensation of eating something fresh, cool, earthy but in one bite.
VANIER (voice over): Arora hopes she can soon continue to eat her way around India's states and by spreading the word others can follow in her
footsteps. Cyril Vanier, CNN.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
FOSTER: Next an historic moment in the UAE ending an historic year from the virus to the vaccine. We look back on twelve months like no other.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Welcome back. Right now Dubai is already vaccinating those who live there against Coronavirus just the day after the UAE approved the
immunization developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. Just on the roads in Abu Dhabi travelers from more than a dozen countries are being added to what
the Emirates calling a new green list that lets them come in without quarantining.
It's also relaxing some of its other very stringent rules around travel. That's a very different approach to what we're seeing around the world
where people are closing borders, but this has been the year of taking a very big, very bold bets in the country where, of course, you'll know that
Becky normally broadcasts the show from. While now Becky gives us a look back through the year.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: In a year of global pandemic, the UAE spending much of 2020 pulling off a series of once thought impossible feats perhaps
most strikingly of all becoming the first ever Arab country to send a probe roaming into the cosmos to mars.
These the first portraits it sent back of its destination, still millions and millions of miles away. The Emirates heaping an awful lot of faith in a
probe aptly named "Hope".
OMRAN SHARAF, PROJECT MANAGER, EMIRATES "HOPE" MARS MISSION: Reaching Mars is a not the main goal here it's a mean for a much bigger goal. It's about
the future of our economy, about creating a creative and innovative and competitive economy.
ANDERSON (voice over): An economy like everywhere else on earth that's been challenged by the Coronavirus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good. How are you?
ANDERSON (voice over): Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri is UAE's Minister of Economy.
ABDULLA BIN TOUQ AL MARRI, UAE MINISTER OF ECONOMY: I think 2020, yes, it was challenging tremendous opportunity that came out of 2020 was amazing.
ANDERSON (voice over): 2020 saw opportunities like this nestled in Baraka, a remote part of Abu Dhabi, the Emirates becoming the first Arab country to
split the atom, and from splitting the atom to splitting with the past.
It's been modernizing its laws both socially and commercially. Among them relaxing the rules around drinking alcohol, letting unmarried couples live
together, introducing a golden visa program, giving ex-pats long-term security, but perhaps most important of all allowing for complete foreign
ownership of companies.
[11:50:00]
ANDERSON (voice over): Do you see these as presenting a key competitive edge for the UAE, particularly in this wider Gulf region?
AL MARRI: I think the - it's been long waited to have changed the laws, and I think this will really help the post-COVID ear where we attract a lot of
businesses and investors. A person asked me how you describe the UAE. I said UAE has always been a hotel lobby where everybody comes in and it's
open for everyone.
ANDERSON (voice over): And in 20209 the UAE had one big trading partner up its sleeve that no one expected in a bold stroke of diplomatic imagination,
normalizing relations with Israel, the first Arab country to do so in more than 25 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are pleased that the United Arab Emirates will be part of the momentum towards stability and the growth of human potential in
a new civilized approach that opens wide the doors of opportunity.
AL MARRI: What does it mean for the economy and the only thing I always say what's good for the economy is good for people and good for the region.
ANDERSON (voice over): The UAE puts the deals at around 300 million to 500 million a year as I understand it. We have the Israeli Minister quoting a
figure of some 4 billion when it comes to the trade between the two and some 15,000 jobs. There's a divergence there, so what is the figure?
AL MARRI: It is a COVID year and interaction needs to take its full momentum. There's a lot of delegation going and delegation coming in, and I
think it's important to allow that space for business to meet, to interact, and I think we'll find a figure maybe towards the mid of 2021 I think.
ANDERSON (voice over): In what was a roiling year, the Emirates also putting science first when it comes to managing COVID-19.
RICHARD HORTON, EDITOR IN CHIEF, THE LANCET: This comes down to a political leadership that is sensitive to the science and that is attuned to the
risks.
ANDERSON (voice over): After recording its first case in late January, by the end of March a small army of drones in the UAE were out cleaning the
streets, and it wasn't just about a sanitization drive. Early on the Emirates rolling out testing centers across the entire country it now has
one of the highest per capita testing rates anywhere in the world. The approach though wasn't all about spreadsheets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The people of UAE, the leadership Mohammed Bin Zayed, my dear brother, thank for the kindness of your heart to help stabilize.
ANDERSON (voice over): The UAE sent shipments of COVID relief to everywhere from Italy to Iran, Kazakhstan, Colombia and more, helping what it says is
more than a million frontline heroes around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good afternoon. How are you?
ANDERSON (voice over): The ultimate help, of course, will be a vaccine, and the UAE has been a big player in the vaccine space, hosting a massive trial
for china's state-owned Sinopharm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was for the first time Abu Dhabi talks around in regard to the clinical trials and right now we're continuing that work.
It's really important for Abu Dhabi and it shows an example of how Abu Dhabi is leading in providing solution, capabilities and capacity to help
the world get through this global pandemic - words of a human fingerprint within a four-hour flight of Abu Dhabi.
ANDERSON (voice over): And that geography really counts as Abu Dhabi puts together what it calls the hope consortium.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It represents a complete supply chain solution to address vaccine transport, demand planning, sourcing, training and digital
technology infrastructure.
ANDERSON (voice over): That will see the Emirates using its footprint to get hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of doses, of the vaccines around
the world, an enormous logistical puzzle as we press ahead into the New Year.
2021, whichever way you spin the Rubik's cube, one assumes is going to be tough, but one hopes we begin to see a global bounce back. Looking to the
UAE specifically, what are your forecasts for 2021?
AL MARRI: The UAE is ready for the - for the opening up, ready, and the rollout - the recent rollout for the vaccines is a huge advancement for
both health and economy. We're forecasting - actually forecasted by the Central Bank in the UAE as a 3.2 percentage growth by the end of this year
so are we back.
ANDERSON (voice over): And it will take everything that the UAE has lined up to help hit those numbers.
[11:55:00]
ANDERSON (voice over): We'll see just how lucrative the deal with Israel is revealing itself from the start of 2021. The "Hope" probe will attach
itself to its new home in February. The nuclear plant is set up to light up a quarter of the entire country's electricity needs with clean, green power
when it starts its commercial operations early in the year and the Dubai Expo postponed in 2020 will finally open its doors to the world in October.
If you had one message for the international community as we close out this interview from the UAE, it would be what?
AL MARRI: The UAE is ready. The UAE is fit, and the UAE is well diversified.
ANDERSON (voice over): An optimistic outlook as the UAE gets set to celebrate its 50th Anniversary in December, and we will be here to cover it
all. Becky Anderson, CNN, Abu Dhabi.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
FOSTER: Stunning images. Now is it's already Christmas Eve in parts of the world and while many places will be under COVID restrictions the U.S. State
of New York is giving one man a Christmas exception.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHRIS CUOMO (D-NY): We have an unusual request, but the UHS has been considering it for the past couple of days and have been granting the
request. Santa Claus asked for an exception for the 14-day quarantine requirement because it would be impractical for him to be in this state and
in quarantine and still get all his gifts delivered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, New York typically requires travelers to quarantine 14 days upon entry. However, as you heard there, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the
Department of Health will let Santa forgo quarantine but Mr. Clause does have to wear a mask. So if anyone spots when he is not wearing one pull him
out. Thanks for watching CONNECT THE WORLD I'm Max Foster in London. The new continues with my colleague Kate Bolduan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
