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Survival is an Everyday Struggle for Parents in Gaza; Several Suspects Accused of Plotting Attacks in Europe; U.S. Pressing Israel to Ease Gaza's Suffering; Venezuela and Guyana Agree to Not Escalate Conflict; Turkish Football Club President Banned for Life. Aired 9-9:45a ET

Aired December 15, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: It is 6 pm here in Abu Dhabi. I'm Eleni Giokos and this is "Connect the World". The U.S. National

Security Advisor calls for Israel to focus on more precise and targeted attacks against Hamas. He's also meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud

Abbas.

European Union Leaders agree to open talks on Ukraine becoming a member, but fail to agree on a multibillion dollar aid package. We'll have a report

from Brussels. And a UK court has ruled that Prince Harry was a victim of phone hacking.

Welcome to the show. And U.S. and Israeli officials are looking ahead to the next phase in Israel's war with Hamas. Earlier U.S. National Security

Advisor Jake Sullivan reiterated Washington's support for Israel's war efforts. However, he also spoke of the Biden Administration's desire for

Israel to shift to a more precise and targeted approach against Hamas amid still rising civilian casualties coming through in Gaza.

We've got Alex Marquardt traveling with Jake Sullivan today, who is also said to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West

Bank in the coming hours. That is where Alex is right now Alex, always great to have you on.

Let's start with what we've seen already with Jake Sullivan, saying that he spoke with Netanyahu on dumb bombs used. But just how much sway and

influence does the U.S. have on Netanyahu's war strategy.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Eleni, the U.S. has as much sway as anybody. And that's just to say that the U.S. is

Israel's biggest backer. And so insofar as anybody has influence over Netanyahu and the government, it's the United States.

But that does not mean that the U.S. can dictate terms. And Jake Sullivan today certainly taken care to make sure that it doesn't look like that he

is dictating how Israel should go about its war? I asked Jake Sullivan about our reporting about how thousands of dumb bombs have been used just

shy of all of the bombs that have been dropped on Gaza.

He didn't deny that. In fact, he didn't say that Israel shouldn't use them. He just said that they are -- it's they're determined -- their use is

determined on a case by case basis to turn, depending on the mission that Israel intends to carry out. And of course, that they do take care of

making sure that they don't hit civilians.

This has been the Biden Administration's line that Israel has the intent to do what they can to make sure that civilians are not killed. But the actual

effect they have said is not what they are hoping for. We heard President Biden saying just yesterday that he really wants Israel to take better care

of making sure civilians don't get killed.

But Eleni the big question today was how the U.S. sees the timeline for this war playing out? How that squares with Israel's intention, which they

say is to eradicate Hamas? And for -- you know to go after them for as long as it takes. Here's a little bit of what Sullivan told me earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: What I am going to say is that we had a very constructive conversation yesterday about the transition

from the high intensity phase forward. And we expect that that will occur in the future.

When exactly that happens and under exactly what conditions will be continuing intensive discussion between the United States and Israel. And I

will make sure that that conversation, at least as far as I can do it is going to stay -- is going to take place behind closed doors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So what he's talking about there is something the American officials have been talking about more and more. And this is an inflection

point that is coming up a transition from this higher intensity phase that we're seeing right now to a lower intensity phase, where Israel would pull

back and carry out more targeted counterterrorism operations.

Try to take out Hamas Leaders in Special Forces raids, when that's going to happen? Jake Sullivan wouldn't say we've been told behind the scenes that

U.S. has been pressing for it to happen in weeks, not months. But Sullivan being very careful, not wanting to make it look like he's pressuring Israel

while in Israel.

And of course, there is the concern that of course, the timeline could slide if Israel is not meeting its goals. Sullivan saying that this was

very much a condition based timeline. But when I asked him what those conditions were, he declined to elaborate on that Eleni.

GIOKOS: Alex, importantly you are traveling with Jake Sullivan. You are currently in the West Bank. We know that Sullivan is set to meet with

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. So this isn't just an issue in terms of the dire situation that's playing out in Gaza right now. But

also what happens next and the future of Palestinians in Israel and Gaza, the West Bank as well. What are we expecting from that meeting?

MARQUARDT: Well, we did come over here to the West Bank because Sullivan has these meetings with Mahmoud Abbas and top Palestinian PA officials, I

should say.

[09:05:00]

It could be a contentious meeting in the immediate term. Abbas and other Palestinians, I would say almost every Palestinian is furious with the way

that the U.S. has been voting at the United Nations rejecting calls for an immediate ceasefire. Abbas has accused the U.S. of being complicit with

Israeli war crimes for supporting the bloodshed in Gaza.

So he's definitely going to be saying some of those things and making his displeasure known to Jake Sullivan. And then they're going to have some

touchy conversations about the future of the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. says that the PA should be -- the governing body for both the West

Bank and Gaza, a revitalized reformed PA, they say.

Now they're -- tap dancing. They're tiptoeing around the issue of whether Abbas would be in charge of that. So that really would be the elephant in

the room. At the same time as they figured out what a future PA would look like. The U.S. has to very carefully navigate conversations with Israel.

Israel has said that they do not want Abbas in charge of governing Gaza. They don't want the PA. And so it's not clear what exactly this day after

is going to look like? There are lots of conversations going on with the Palestinians, with the Israelis with regional partners. For now, of course,

so much of the attention is on the fighting but there are major questions about who will govern not just Palestinians in Gaza after this war but here

in the West Bank as well Eleni?

GIOKOS: Right, Alex Marquardt, thank you so much. Well, for many mothers and fathers in Gaza war has not just taken their homes as well as their

livelihoods. It's drained them of their dignity and stolen their children's innocence. And for these parents simply keeping their families alive has

turned into an everyday struggle. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh reports and a warning some of the images you are about to see are graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): These are the desperate cries of a father left with nothing but his voice. A father

who can no longer protect his three vulnerable children, I can't survive. They destroyed my house. Mohamed (ph) says I can't get food. I have no one

to support me. I spent the night moving from tent to tent for more than 60 days. He's tried to stay strong until he could no more.

His disabled children homeless, hungry and hurting from Gaza's war, what do you do when your child needs you? What you've got nothing left to give.

Have mercy on us Mohamed says. No mercy for the people of this besieged land it seems. Rain of blessing they used to say that it only brings more

to spare. For those forced out of their homes, life has become this miserable existence as rains flooded their makeshift camps. It's a harsh

winter. That's only just beginning.

Omalley (ph) shows us the tiny tents she lives in with 11 others her two daughters and grandchildren. She spent the night trying to catch the rain

that dripped through the roof of their flimsy shelter. This is humiliation Omalley (ph) says I have these children without a father. I can't take it

anymore. Even children now hate life she says.

It's just too much for parents to bear when you can't even keep your children dry, warm and clean. As diseases start to spread and the aid they

so badly need now a weapon in this war. I want to protect my children this mother says. The bombings and destruction are not enough. On top of that

now we have the rain cold and illnesses to be apparent in Gaza is a blessing turned into torture for those who no longer wonder if but how they

and their children will die?

Mohamed says he was sitting thinking of how he will feed his children when an airstrike hit? Where do I take my children he says? I fled and came here

to die? I gave my children my everything that will take care of them if I die?

Like many in Gaza, it's not only Israel they blame they want Hamas to stop a war for which they paid the price abandoned alone as the world won't stop

their pain. Six year old Lana (ph) was under the rubble of her home for three days. Mommy and daddy are underneath that she says. I just want mama.

I want baba.

[09:10:00]

I want my family, Lana cries. To be a parent in Gaza is to live in the fear of this that you no longer are there when they need you the most. Jomana

Karadsheh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GIOKOS: Very powerful reporting there by Jomana. I'll also be speaking to Regional Emergency Director with the World Health Organization Dr. Richard

Brennan, who visited the hospital in Egypt where a dozen infants from Gaza are now receiving care. Hear more about what he's witnessed, and that's

coming up in the next hour of "Connect the World".

While the humanitarian crisis grows direr by the day in Gaza, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone

on Thursday about the Israeli Hamas war and other issues including Sweden's NATO bid, which is still waiting for Turkey's approval on the war in Gaza.

Turkey says Mr. Erdogan told Mr. Biden, it's the United States' historical responsibility to ensure a permanent ceasefire to help end the suffering in

Gaza. The White House says President Biden reiterated his support of Israel's right to defend itself during the call. For more on this, I want

to bring in Scott McLean in Istanbul for us. Scott thanks so much for joining us.

This was an absolutely important call, but not one with a lot of common ground here. Where to from here? What more do we know about what was

discussed?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eleni, so yeah. This was an immensely important call, in part because this is actually the first time that these

two leaders, NATO allies have spoken since this war began a war in which Turkey and the United States have -- you know vastly divergent viewpoints.

The United States is probably Israel's biggest ally right now. And Turkey is undoubtedly one of its strongest critics. And when you read and compare

these readouts of these two calls or this call from these two countries, there's not a lot of crossover.

In fact, it's not clear to me that there was anything -- of any real substance that was actually agreed upon. I'll run you through a few

examples. So when it comes to Sweden's NATO bid, of course, Turkey is one of two countries that still have yet to approve it.

The American side of the call says they discussed the importance of welcoming Sweden as an ally as soon as possible. The Turkish version

though, is different. All it says is Sweden's NATO membership process was discussed. Turkey is hoping that the Americans will approve the sale of F-

16 fighter jets to them, at the same time as the Turkish Parliament approves Sweden's NATO bid.

But the Americans didn't actually mention anything about that on their readout. The Turkish version says the F-16 issue was discussed during the

meeting. And on Gaza well, the differences become even starker. The American version says that on humanitarian aid, says the leaders also

discussed efforts to increase humanitarian assistance to Gaza and protect civilians.

The Turkish readout actually makes no mention of humanitarian aid. It says this. During the meeting, President Erdogan stated that the humanitarian

tragedy in Gaza must be stopped as soon as possible when it comes to the fighting. President Biden, the American version of this call says President

Biden reiterated his support for Israel's right to defend itself.

The Turkish version says the United States' withdrawal of unconditional support for Israel can ensure a ceasefire quickly. It is the historical

responsibility of the U.S. to ensure a permanent ceasefire in the region as soon as possible.

Of course Eleni, part of the problem here is that Turkey and the United States view this whole situation fundamentally different. The Americans,

you know, look at Israel as the country that's defending itself. Hamas is the terror group. Turkey views Israel as the terrorist state. That's what

President Erdogan has said.

And it believes that Hamas is merely a liberation group. And even after the war, they don't agree on what should happen next. The Americans believe

that Hamas should play no part in governing Gaza. When I spoke to Erdogan's Chief Advisor on security and foreign policy, he made very clear that

whether you like it or not, Hamas is part of this and they will have to be some part of a solution if there is one coming down in the future, Eleni.

GIOKOS: Yeah, Scott McLean great to have you on thank you. Well, authorities in Germany and the Netherlands have a racist several terrorist

suspects on Thursday Germany's federal prosecutors said that authorities arrested for suspected members of Hamas. Three were arrested in Germany and

one was arrested in the Netherlands.

In a separate announcement Danish intelligence authorities said four other arrests have been made for terrorism offenses. Our CNN's Melissa Bell has

the details on all of these arrests across Europe and she joins us now live from Paris.

[09:15:00]

Melissa, we've seen these arrests. I mean, the question firstly is, are these arrests connected in any way? And what do we know about the grounds

of these arrests?

MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: No, two very different separate sets of arrest. In fact, Danish authorities have said explicitly that they're

not linked. Just to start with the Danish ones, the ones announced by the Danish authorities on Thursday.

We've just had an update on that. It is four people that were arrested that we know of so far, we've just heard from Danish authorities, that four

extra people were remodeling costs custody in absentia. They are still now at large. What we understand is that these arrests have been made in regard

to terror allegations.

We don't know the specifics of that the details of it. In fact, state authorities have been very cautious about linking this to the Middle East.

We've heard from the Danish Prime Minister who did reference the war in Israel, against Hamas. But we haven't heard that specifically from the

authorities with regard to the details of the nature of the charges.

As for the four arrests that were made by German authorities, three people inside Germany, one person inside the Netherlands. These were specifically

linked to Hamas. In fact what German authorities say all the three people who were taken in front of an investigative judge today and that extra

fourth person who was tipped off by German authorities were arrested by Dutch authorities is that these four were active members of Hamas, long

standing members of Hamas, Eleni?

And they've been actively preparing to carry out attacks against Jewish targets. In fact, on some of those specifics, what we've heard from German

authorities is that this group of individuals had been collecting weapons, and building a cache of weaponry in Berlin. The aim was then to use them

elsewhere against U.S. targets.

And what they noted they say after October 7th was an increased number of trips by these individuals from Berlin to other parts of Germany to try and

acquire more weapons. So two separate series of arrests, but both come at a time of course, when European countries are on high alert, because of that

fear of terror threats that have been linked to the war in Israel.

Here in France, we're on our highest level of warning and European why -- the EU had warned that Europe should prepare for a heightened terror

threat, specifically Eleni over the Christmas period.

GIOKOS: Melissa Bell, thank you. Well still to come, some world leaders are calling it historic the EU decision to move forward with membership talks

with Ukraine. That's all coming up. And the European Union has given the green light for talks with Ukraine on becoming a member. We'll be back

after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIOKOS: Welcome back. Now the European Union has given the green light for talks with Ukraine on becoming a member nearly two years after it became a

candidate state.

[09:20:00]

The move sends a very strong message to Moscow following concerns that Western allies were faltering in their support for Ukraine. And Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the decision a victory for all of Europe. But Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the move --

denounced the move rather, calling it senseless as well as irrational.

CNN's Bianca Nobilo has been covering the EU Summit in Belgium this week, and she joins us now live from Brussels Bianca, great to have you on. Look,

this has been something that President Zelenskyy has been calling for incessantly, frankly, a really important move forward for Ukraine to enter

the EU. But of course, the big question on funding and Viktor Orban, you know, blocking more aid going in to fund the war.

BIANCA NOBILO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Summit did not give with both hands, Eleni. That is certainly true. So there was a huge symbolic diplomatic

victory for President Zelenskyy in the 26 member states agreeing to green light Ukraine's path forward to becoming a fully-fledged Member of the

European Union.

Though that takes an average of a decade and Ukraine has more obstacles than almost any country that's ever tried to attempt this before. However,

Viktor Orban did succeed in blocking the 50 billion euro sum which was supposed to reassure Ukraine and tie it over economically through next

year, and for the next four years as well.

Bearing in mind that comes after the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not succeed at getting the $61 billion from President Biden.

So he is in a difficult spot now a precarious position at a critical juncture where Russian President -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is

claiming more success on the battlefield.

You know, that can be argued. But the key point about this summit is that it will be long road ahead for President Zelenskyy. But this is a very --

it's a very momentous occasion for Ukrainians. Let's not forget that back in 2013, when Ukraine was en-route (ph) to signing a European Association

Agreement, IE taking a step towards becoming closer with the European Union.

That was one of the key triggers to ultimately Vladimir Putin illegally annexing Crimea. So these moves of Ukraine to go further into the European

fold and away from Russia are what antagonize Vladimir Putin the most. So it's a very important step for Ukraine on that front, but the cold hard

cash to backup Ukraine's ambitions to fight off Putin and to stabilize itself as a country that is not there.

GIOKOS: Bianca Nobilo, thank you so much. Well, let's get you up to speed on some of the stories that are on our radar right now. In Beijing more

than 500 people were sent to the hospital on Thursday after two metro trains collided in the snow.

Officials say one train came to an emergency stop due to slippery tracks and the other crashed into it. Two carriages appear to have detached from

one train injuring several passengers. No deaths were reported.

Iran's official news agency says 11 police officers have been killed in what it calls a terrorist attack a member of Baluch militants were also

killed. The attack happened at a police station in Southeastern Iran. It is not clear yet who is responsible for the killings.

Associates of jailed Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny say they've had no contact with him for 10 days at his last hearing a court was told he

is no longer in the region where he has been imprisoned since July. A spokesperson says it is unclear how -- where he is right now?

Well coming up, could these hot rocks be the next big thing in renewable energy? Our Climate Chief has that story for us. Plus, new warnings about

the risks of artificial intelligence and this time it's in finance (ph).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

GIOKOS: Welcome back. I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi. And you're watching "Connect the World". Here are your headlines this hour. U.S. National

Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is in the West Bank today to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a conference in Tel Aviv

earlier.

He reiterated Washington support for Israel's war efforts, while noting the U.S.'s desire for Israel to shift to a more targeted approach against

Hamas. Several arrests have been made in Europe over potential terror plots on Thursday.

Germany's federal prosecutors said authorities had arrested four suspected members of Hamas, three in Germany and one in the Netherlands. Separately

Danish authorities said four other arrests have been made for what the Prime Minister called extremely serious terrorism offenses.

Now the European Union has decided to open a session talks with Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a victory for all of Europe, the

country still faces obstacles to joining and it could be years before it's granted full membership.

The United Nations Climate Conference wrapped up this week in the UAE and for the first time nearly 200 countries agreed to attacks (ph) that

encouraged moving away from planet heating fossil fuels. In a press release the United Nations said it signaled the beginning of the end of the fossil

fuel era.

Now the energy transition may still feel very overwhelming to a lot of us, given our reliance on oil and gas. But one man in California, please parts

of the solution could be as simple as putting rocks in a box. To explain to us we've got CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir, who is joining us

from New York with a story on new thermal battery prototype. I want you to take me -- when I first read this I thought are we talking about a sonar

type environment you know hot rocks in a box?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: That's what yeah.

GIOKOS: Please explain.

WEIR: It evokes a spa day, doesn't it Elena? Yeah. But you know, a long, long, long, long time ago an ancient human at some point moved a hot rock

from next to the fire to a colder port of the cave, and invented essentially the thermal battery and now this simple idea, summer hoping can

supercharge the decarbonization of a modern planet. As people race to get off of oil and gas. And there's so much now abundant renewable energy that

simple idea is taken off, take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (voice over): For the first time in human history, the two most affordable forms of energy do not come from burning fossil fuels but from

catching onshore wind, or clean, abundant sunlight.

ANDREW PONEC, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ANTORA ENERGY: Most days in the middle of the day in California energy is free. Electricity on the wholesale market

is worth $0 sometimes even negative dollars, because there's so much solar that's now been installed in California.

WEIR (voice over): The same thing is happening in the American wind belt. So while Andrew Ponec was the kind of kid who built solar panels in the

garage, he realized that renewables are great for topping off batteries in cars and homes. But the factories which make everything from steel to baby

food need a lot have energy all the time.

PONEC: The problem is you can't shut down your factory when the sun goes behind the cloud or the wind stops blowing.

[09:25:00]

WEIR (voice over): So with $80 million in investment from, including Bill Gates, he started a company called "Antora" to store clean energy with.

PONEC: This is it.

WEIR (voice over): A box of rocks.

WEIR: I hard time explaining to my kids what nuclear fusion is. But this is just a hot rock in a box.

PONEC: Exactly.

WEIR: Heated up by either wind or the sun, right?

PONEC: People sometimes feel like they're insulting us by saying, hey, that sounds really simple. And we say no, that's exactly the point. You know,

there's not much more here than a steel box with insulation inside of that, and some carbon blocks inside of that. That's it.

WEIR (voice over): And Taurus Batteries heat up blocks of carbon like this until they glow like little suns for a full day.

PONEC: What's right in the box right now is about 1600 degrees Celsius. So this is hotter than the melting point of steel, and it's just a couple of

feet inside that shell.

WEIR (voice over): By cracking open the box, Andrew says they can release enough heat to make a factory steam, and enough light to generate

electricity as it glows into a special kind of solar panel. And while the box is tricky to build, the rocks are cheap and abundant.

PONEC: There's plenty of production of this even just 1 percent of the current production of carbon blocks would be enough to make terawatt hours

of batteries, which would be enough to power you know the United States.

WEIR (voice over): A competing company called "Rondo" uses even cheaper bricks in their thermal batteries to create megawatts of power for a single

factory without the need for a grid upgrade, which means places with a lot of sun and wind could become magnets for new industry. Both companies were

present at COP28 in Dubai where big oil had a big presence. But Andrew came back convinced that clean simple ideas are the future.

PONEC: The transition is inevitable. It's going to happen. And actually, if you talk behind closed doors to most of the people in the fossil fuel

industry, they'll say the same thing. They understand that. But I'm confident that we're going to be able to take that huge tool that we have

in solar and wind and displace fossil fuels faster even than most people think.

WEIR: Really?

PONEC: Yeah.

WEIR: Why? Why? What gives you that faith?

PONEC: It's really because of the technologies that are coming down the pipe. If you'd asked me 5 or 10 years ago, I would have said, I'm not sure

we have everything we need to decarbonize. But today we have the tools we need. We just need to deploy them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (on camera): We talk a lot about grid storage. And we think about sort of lithium batteries, that stuff that's in our electronics. But there are

actually Eleni 3 times or 10 times as much thermal storage at blast furnaces around the world that catch all this waste heat stored in bricks,

and then release it to make steam throughout the day. It's off the shelf, it's proven. It's cheap. And it could be a huge key to decarbonizing heavy

industry, because factories need to run all the time.

GIOKOS: And it's -- I mean, it's a fantastic story really interesting. But here's the thing is it's scalable. I mean, you mentioned it's really cheap.

And even your guest said you know we have to transition -- you know the oil and gas industry knows it. But if you can't replace the revenues that come

from oil and gas, then you're sitting with a problem, a socio economic problem. So is it scalable? Is that something that people want to use to

transition their economies?

WEIR: Well, if you think about the sort of the test cases that these companies have. There are factories in Australia, for example, where you

put one of these units next to a big carbon intensive operation. And that immediately takes away that waste without them waiting in line for the

grid.

So the economics of this, it is now cheaper to build a power plant that runs on wind and sun than any other fuel for the first time in history. So

and this is that storage piece of that. So will countries adopt this at scale, possibly?

The advantage is this stuff is all off the shelf, unlike nuclear fusion, where you have to build an entirely new technology to ramp it up. And it's

way in the distance. This is immediately available right now, they say. So it's going to be thousand different solutions in every form of our lives,

that sort of take down the carbon debt that we put in the sky. But sometimes the ideas are more elegant than we think.

GIOKOS: Exactly right. And so many clean tech solutions out there so it's going to be fascinating to see them all come into effect Bill always great

to speak to; always teach me something new and fascinating thank you so much.

WEIR: My pleasure.

GIOKOS: Great, all right. So for the first time federal regulators in the United States a warning that artificial intelligence poses risks to the

financial system, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which was created after the 2008 financial crisis as classified AI as a "Emerging

Vulnerability".

The leaders of Venezuela and Guyana say they will not use force against each other amid a dispute over an oil rich piece of Guyanese land on

Thursday. They agreed to create the joint commission to address the territorial spats.

[09:35:00]

And still the two countries positions on the Essequibo region remain far apart after a long -- day long summit held in the Caribbean island of St.

Vincent and the Grenadines. CNN's Patrick Oppmann explains.

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Presidents of Venezuela and Guyana met on Thursday in an attempt to lower tensions surrounding a region of

Guyana that Venezuela has increasingly laid claim to. Upon arriving in St. Vincent where the talks were held the President of Venezuela, Nicolas

Maduro issued a statement where he said that he arrived with the backing of the Venezuelan people.

He says they support his annexation of this region of Guyana. This is an issue that goes back decades Venezuelans have long felt that this part of

their country was wrested away from them unfairly. It is an area that is about 160,000 square kilometers a jungle remote region of Guyana, but one

where there has been discoveries of oil and gas that promised to provide the Guyanese people with billions of dollars in the years ahead.

Guyana for its part says this is an issue for the International Court of Justice to decide and they're not prepared to give back a single piece,

single part of this area which they say it belongs to Guyana. The President of Guyana on Thursday, said that both countries are committed to peace and

working on this issue together.

But he seemed unwilling to budge to the demands of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, who has increasingly over the past several weeks, been threatening

Guyana with the idea that Venezuela could invade and take away by force, a part of this contested region, if not the entire contested region.

The United States is backing Guyana, as there are other countries in the region. And it's unclear if Nicolas Maduro really tends to follow through

on these threats, or this is just a bid to increase nationalist sentiment ahead of a presidential election in 2024.

And while both sides have said they are committed to holding further talks, it seems unlikely that both sides can be made happy through any further

negotiations, as both countries have now laid a claim to this territory and say essentially, that it belongs to them. Patrick Oppmann, CNN Havana.

GIOKOS: Well coming up, how a few seconds on the pitch change this football team's President live forever? And we'll get the latest on the Turkish

football incident, that's coming up. Plus, a legal victory for Prince Harry against a tabloid publisher, why the Prince is calling the court's decision

a great day for truth. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:00]

GIOKOS: Britain's Prince Harry has won a lawsuit against the British tabloid newspaper group he accused of hacking his phone. A court in London

ruled that Mirror Group Newspapers used unlawful information gathering methods, including phone hacking and 15 stories published about the Prince.

The judge awarded him nearly $180,000 in damages. Prince Harry described the ruling as a great day for truth and accountability. Mirror Group

Newspapers has issued an apology saying it has taken full responsibility.

Heavy snowfall has been blanketing parts of Northern China but the snow is not all bad news especially for some animals at the Beijing zoo. Check out

this giant panda playing in the first snowfall of the winter, especially cold temperatures are forecast for Beijing this weekend. And one

climatologist says snow depths have broken records at several Chinese weather stations. And of course the pandas look very happy indeed.

Well, the Former President of a Turkish Football Club is seeing firsthand how one raised fist can knock him down for life? Up until Monday Faruk Koca

presided over one of Turkey's top flight football teams. But a moment of anger directed at a referee is costing him absolutely everything.

We've got Amanda Davies with us to explain what his fate is. Of course, this has been very highly covered Amanda this incident and now these are

the consequences for this football coach?

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORT: For the President of MKE Ankaragucu and rightly so. Violence is not acceptable in any form, and certainly not

against a referee who is there doing his job in his place of work as it was described earlier this week.

This was a crime that took place on a football pitch. And the Turkish Football Federation has announced a lifetime ban from football for Faruk

Koca. That is in footballing terms, his team are forced to play five games behind closed doors without their fans present.

But the criminal case against him and three other individuals continues. So that is not the end of the story. But he won't be welcomed back in football

again, rightly so, as I said. And the football is set to resume the action across all Turkish Leagues on Tuesday next week after a week, which has

been described as a week of shame for the game.

GIOKOS: Yeah. All right, Amanda, we'll see you right after the short break. And I'll be back at the top of the hour with more "Connect the World" stay

with CNN.

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