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Shooter Guns Down 9 in South Carolina Church; Pope Discusses Climate Change in Encyclical; More US Troops Header to Iraq to Train Local Military
Aired June 18, 2015 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(CNN DOMESTIC SIMULCAST)
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CURNOW: Hi there, and welcome to the International Desk. I'm Robyn Curnow.
Well, we want to recap the breaking new story we've following with our colleagues at CNN US. The fatal church shooting in Charleston, South
Carolina. Now the US Justice Department is opening a hate crime investigation into Wednesday night's attack at the historic African-
American church, and a major manhunt is under way for the suspected shooter who's described as a white male in his early 20's. There you see an image
of him. Nine people were killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Now, to the Vatican, another story we're covering here at CNN today, where Pope Francis is putting the heat on climate change deniers. In a new 180-
page letter called an Encyclical, the pontiff says the earth is beginning to look like, quote, a pile of filth, and he puts the blame for climate
change directly on human beings, and their relentless pursuit for profit. Well, our CNN Vatican correspondent Delia Gallagher joins us now with more
from the Vatican. Hi there, Delia. I mean, this is quite a toughly-worded letter, isn't it?
DELIA GALLAGHER: It is. The Pope is certainly setting off some alarm bells. I mean, he's calling essentially for a -- he says a cultural
revolution because doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony, so all throughout the document, he is going very hard against, for example,
multinationals, against governments of industrialized countries, saying that they behave in developing countries in ways that they would never be
allowed to at home, so clearly putting a lot of the responsibility at their feet saying that they have the greater responsibility for care of the
environment. Again, taking the side of the poor, saying that we need to hear the cry of the poor as much as the cry of the earth. He also says
something interesting that there is a sort of green rhetoric, the Pope said, amongst the elite in urban, affluent areas that is out of the touch
with the poor, and, again, making the connection that those people need to be in contact with what are the realities of developing economies because,
he says, those are going to be the hardest hit in the coming decade. The Pope is really sort of stepping back, Robyn, calling for a kind of holistic
approach to care for the environment, not just for the environment, obviously, but also for the sake of these developing economies. He does
speak to the individual and say we are all responsible for recycling. He says, take the bus. Put on an extra sweater rather than turning on your
heat, and cook only the food that you can eat. He takes to task animal rights groups saying, animal rights is important, and extinction of species
are important, but a holistic approach would require that you are also, therefore, in favor of human rights, and human rights, of course, for the
Pope include the rights of the unborn, and he uses an example of experimentation on animals and people that are wanting to limit the science
on that, and he says, well, if you want to limit that, then we should also limit it on experimentation on human embryos, for example, so there's a lot
to cover in the nearly 200-page Encyclical, Robyn.
CURNOW: Indeed, very wide ranging, Delia Gallagher, at the Vatican. Thank you so much. So why did this Pope dedicate this Encyclical to climate
change? Well, I'm joined now from New York by CNN religion commentator, Father Edward Beck. He's a Roman Catholic Priest. Hi there, sir. Now, a
lot of this stuff is, like Delia said, wide ranging, pretty simple. We all agree with it. You don't have to be Roman Catholic to understand the basic
message of what he's saying. Why is it so controversial?
FATHER EDWARD BECK: Well, Robyn, first of all, I think what's interesting is, he did not address it just to Christians or Catholics. He addressed it
to all people who inhabit our common home, so everybody on the earth, he says, has a responsibility in this, and I think what he's saying is that
it's all interconnected; the earth, the poor, all human beings are interconnected, so until we care for the environment, it's related to
caring for each other as well. He critiques unbridled capitalism and consumerism. There's some very interesting things in there even about
private property. He says, yeah, you can have private property, but it comes with a social mortgage. Now, some people are not going to like that,
so people who have said it's Marxist. It's socialist. He puts some of that stuff out there and says, you need to care for one another. Profit
cannot be the ultimate goal for corporations or for individuals, so I think that's kind of rankering (ph) some feathers.
CURNOW: Rankling some feathers, but what about within the Vatican. This is not the first time this Pope has kind of gone rogue and is pushing the
boundary psyche, makes him popular with others, but within the Vatican, with the strict hierarchy of the Holy Sea. I mean, how is he viewed?
BECK: Well, I would say it's both. It's some are very supportive of him, and some saying he's going too far outside of the bounds of what the church
should be doing because the whole beginning of this Encyclical addressed to everyone, really doesn't talk about theology much at all. It talks about
global warming. It talks about the fact that human beings are responsible for climate change and so people are saying, well, these are kind of
political things. Why is the Pope talking about it? Others say, of course, he has to talk about it. It's directly related to human rights.
It's directly related to how the poor are impacted, so it's exactly what he should be talking about, so I think that's one of the reasons that it's
controversial. As Delia said, though, he also makes it very practical. He says for simple people who gather to have a meal, he says, say a prayer
before and after because something like a meal prayer, something as simple as that, acknowledges that the food has been given to you by a creator,
that there are workers who have worked to get this to you, and then there's a consciousness that not everybody shares in this kind of bounty, so
something as simple as a prayer raises consciousness while you're at dinner.
CURNOW: Okay. Father Edward Beck, a Roman Catholic Priest, thank you for giving us your assessment of this important document.
BECK: You're welcome. Thank you, Robyn.
CURNOW: Well, let's look -- thanks. And, well, let's look at what the science is behind this Pope's call for action. I mean, a lot of people,
these climate change deniers put up an argument that really seems quite cuckoo head to some people, frankly, because there's a lot of science
behind it.
DEREK VAN DAM: The mounting is -- the evidence is really mounting up.
CURNOW: And what we see here is an aligning of --
VAN DAM: Yeah.
CURNOW: -- religion and science.
VAN DAM: Yeah. That's right. It's becoming harder and harder to back a skeptic --
CURNOW: Yeah.
VAN DAM: -- these days.
CURNOW: Yeah.
VAN DAM: Nine of the ten warmest years have occurred since 2000. Our oceans have become 30 percent more acidic since the start of the Industrial
Revolution, and heat-trapping green house gases like carbon dioxide. We talk about that so frequently. Well, that has actually become at levels
that we haven't seen 800,000 years, so we look towards extreme weather events to give us this evidence that climate change is real, and that it is
happening, and that it is extremely urgent. It's not like we haven't seen drought, heavy rain or heat waves before. It's just that they have become
more severe and more frequent. Let's take the India heat wave this year that's killed thousands of people. We've got ongoing drought conditions in
California and Brazil. The numbers are staggering. Take a look at this as well. Carbon dioxide, our green house gas that continues to trap heat
close to the earth's surface. That has reached levels that we have not experienced since 800,000 years ago, and that is putting people at risk
disproportionately so; in fact, the poorest of poor are feeling the effects and will continue to feel the effects of climate change going forward; in
fact, 15 of the most vulnerable countries across the world are considered lower income countries. This is significant; especially, with the Pope's
Encyclical that's just come out because, as we see, our vulnerability is increased. That would be population, densities living closer to oceans,
for instance, our capacity or our ability to actually adapt to a changing planet or to a warming planet, for instance, goes down, so the lower
economies that we continue to talk about, Engla -- India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, all those regions have a -- more exposure, more people and more
vulnerability to contend with, and that is considerably worsening; in fact, into Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Let's take, for instance, sea level rise
is a good indicator of our melting glaciers and our ice shelves in and Arctica, and into Greenland. This is going to really impact places like
the Philippines. We've talked about the Maldives, for instance, and look at the population densities of these locations as well. Projected into the
year 2050, they're going to have millions and millions of more people compared to where they are now, according to the IPPC, more vulnerable,
more at risk to sea level rise, and that is one of many indicators that climate change is real. It's urgent, and it's happening now.
CURNOW: Okay. Thanks for that, Derek Van Dam. Appreciate it.
VAN DAM: All right, Robyn.
CURNOW: Well, stay with CNN as we bring you much more coverage of this significant move by Pope Francis, and, also, just under two hours from now,
I'll be joined by the executive director of the UN environment program to find out his thoughts on the pontiff's climate change agenda, and you've
been watching breaking news coverage of the mass shooting at a church in Charleston, Carolina [sic]. We'll go back to that as soon as there are any
new developments.
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CURNOW: Welcome back. You're watching the International Desk. I'm Robyn Curnow. And we're following the latest developments in that fatal shooting
at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, for you. Just to bring you up-to-date, police are looking for the suspect,
who's described as a younger white male and a very dangerous individual, and someone filled with hate. A law enforcement official says witnesses
told them the suspect said he was there to shoot black people. Nine people were killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Wednesday
night. The US Justice Department is opening a hate crime investigation into the attack. Now to crucial talks on the Greek debt crisis in
Luxembourg. Hopes of saving Greece from default and leaving the Eurozone are fading fast, and, now, IMF chief Christine Lagarde says they'll be no
grace period if Greece fails to make a nearly $2 billion payment by the end of the month. Well, Isa Soares is waiting patiently for us there to go to
her. I mean, really, just give us sense of what the mood is like in Athens at the moment. There is still very big support for the government, isn't
there?
ISA SOARES: Oh, very much so, Robyn. You know, I was looking at the latest poll numbers, and more than 33 percent backing Tsipras and the
government of Alexis Tsipras and really what he's proposing. He has a very strong mandate. The mandate is to put -- to say no to austerity. That
always has been the case, and the red lines really have not changed since day one, so if you -- speaking to people here, Robyn, they basically --
they're very nervous considering the fact that this is been going on for five months, and so -- and it's getting closer and closer to that deadline
of June the 30th, but they're also pretty defiant. They say they've given up so much, that they shouldn't give into cuts anymore in terms of pension,
and the government has every right to they will the Euro Group, tell The (inaudible) or the IMF, the ECB or the European Central Bank, and the
European Commission that enough is enough. We have heard, though, a change of tone. I know you mentioned Christine Lagarde there saying today that
there won't be any sort of grace period if they don't pay up, but if you remember 24 hours ago or so, we had Yanis Varoufakis. He is the Greek
Finance Minister, and he was basically saying he was going to show up in Luxembourg for this Euro Group finance meeting today, and he wasn't going
to walk in with any ideas. Well, it seems now, he is considering a change of tact, and he may be walking in with some ideas in hand. Take a listen
to what he had to say.
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Sometime ago, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank said quite correctly that for the Euro to succeed
anywhere, it must succeed everywhere. We think he's absolutely spot on, and today we are going to be presenting the Greek Government's ideas along
those lines. The purpose is to replace costly discord with effective consensus. Thank you very much.
SOARES: So effective consensus. So the question now is, is he just got some sort of generic ideas, or does he have concrete proposals that will
reach a deal. It seems that from the Euro Group camp, they're being very, very, very, serious about this, and really unwavering in their decisions to
not give any more opportunities to Greece, but now it seems it's all in Greece's court to really reach some sort of consensus, but Greece, too,
does not seem to be wavering and at the same time, I must say, Robyn, that the prime minister is actually coincidentally in Russian -- a Russia
meeting with Putin, Robyn.
CURNOW: Thanks so much, Isa, appreciate it there. That report coming to us from Athens. Now, I want to take us over to our colleagues at CNN USA
where there have been some developments in that investigation into the shooting at that church. Let's listen in.
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CURNOW: Welcome back to the International Desk. I'm Robyn Curnow. Well, you're been watching breaking news coverage from our colleagues at CNN USA,
and we have an update now, as they've been saying, on that fatal shooting at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Police say the suspect has been identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof a relative says law enforcement officers have been at his mother's house.
Nine people, including a Bible study class -- attending a Bible study class, were killed Wednesday night. A law enforcement official says
witnesses told them the suspect said he was there to shoot black people. Well, this Charleston church is a building steeped in history. It's been a
prominent part of Charleston's African-American community for two centuries now, and it's played a -- has played host to dignitaries such as Martin
Luther King. Visit CNN.com to learn more about the church and it's links to freed slaves and the civil rights movement. You'll find that link at
our webpage. Let's move on now. In Israel, 16 Jewish minors who were requested in connection with a church fire at a Christian holy site have
been released. Now, Israeli police say the fire at the Church of the Multiplication was intentionally set. CNN's Oren Liebermann joins us now
from Israel. He's in an area Called Tabgha, which is at the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Hi there, what can you tell us about this?
OREN LIEBERMANN: Robyn, it's not hard when you look around to see why police are calling this an arson, why they're so confident here. They say
two fires started right in this area of the monastery section of the church early this morning just after 3:00 o'clock this morning, and you can see
what's left of the monastery, and that is not much. The damage here is almost complete. The destruction from these two fires that burned in here,
you can see everything has been charred. Everything has been torched. I'm holding here a holy scripture, a Bible that's in German. This is a
Benedictine Monastery here, and you can still feel the heat from the fire that was hours ago, and you can also see the other damage here as
firefighters came to put this out, they soaked everything in water, so the damage to the monastery almost complete here. There was also graffiti left
by the arsonists, by extremists, and that graffiti reads in red graffiti in Hebrew on an outside wall of the monastery. It says idols will have their
heads cut off, or idols will be decapitated. Police very much calling this an extremist case, and because of that lettering, because it's in
Hebrew, police very much looking at the possibility that these suspects are Jewish extremists, perhaps from the West Bank, perhaps not, but that's the
direction of the investigation, or at least part of the direction of the investigation now. Both sides here, Israelis and Palestinians, condemning
this. Both sides speaking out in the strongest language saying the investigation should find these extremists. Police have put the head of
their nationalistic crimes unit in charge of this, looking at this as an extremist crime, as a hate crime, to try to find out who would do this.
Again, as you mentioned Robyn, police had 16 people, 16 Jewish youths from the West Bank in for questioning. They took their statements and have
since released them. As of right now, Robyn, the investigation continues police tell us.
CURNOW: And Oren tell us the significance of this area.
LIEBERMANN: This is one of the most significant areas, not just for Christianity here in the Holy Land, but for Christianity worldwide. This
is the Church of the Multiplication, otherwise known as the Church of the Loaves and Fishes. This is where the New Testament says Jesus multiplied
two fish and five loaves of bread to feed 5000 people. That's one of the miracles he performed right in this area, but that's not it. This is also
significant because we're right near the area where the New Testament says Jesus walked on water, and right near the area where the Bible says Jesus
performed the Sermon on the Mount, so it's an incredibly significant region, an incredibly significant area. Again, not just for Christians
here, but also for Christians all around the world, and this crime, this arson comes at an incredibly sensitive time, and, of course, a sensitive
place. That's because police are looking at the possibility of the Jewish extremists torching a Christian church on the first day of Ramadan, Robyn.
CURNOW: Thanks so much, Oren Liebermann for that report. We'll have to leave it at that. Thank you. Now, Iraqi tribal fighters may be willing to
battle ISIS with Iraq's Army, but they still need to feed their families. Coming up, how a money crunch is hurting morale at a key training base.
We're live in Baghdad straight ahead.
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CURNOW: In Belgium, dignitaries from across Europe gathered to mark the 200-year anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. The 10-hour battle was
Napoleon's last defeat before being sent back into exile. About 140,000 men fought there, of which nearly half were either killed, wounded, or
missing after the battle. Elsewhere, a controversial blueprint for Hong Kong's next election has been rejected by lawmakers. The plan backed by
Beijing would have allowed the people of Hong Kong a direct vote for their next leader but only from a list of officially-approved. China says it's
disappointed by the plan's failure.
And US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says US military advisers are making progress training Sunni tribal fighters in Iraq, but he says their biggest
problem is, quote, we simply haven't received enough recruits. Well, the US is deploying 450 additional advisors and support personnel to a base in
Anbar Province, Iraq's Sunni heartland, to assist with training efforts. Our Ben Wedeman visited that base, and he joins us now from Baghdad. Hi
there, Ben. Tell us what you heard, what you saw.
BEN WEDEMAN: Well, what we saw was this ceremony to celebrate the graduation of several hundred Sunni volunteers, volunteers who in this
case, were not trained by US advisors, but rather by officers from the Iraqi Army, but there, we heard lots of complaints, and I can tell you, the
recruits, these volunteers, didn't seem to be in a celebratory mood. Long live Iraq, shout the fighters as they pass into view. They're the latest
graduates from a training program for Sunni volunteers in embattled Anbar Province. They just completed weeks of training here at the Taqaddum Air
Base located between Ramadi and Fallujah, both controlled by ISIS. These men are key to the effort to defeat ISIS, but here's where part of the
problems between the Shia-dominated government and Baghdad, and the country's disaffected Sunnis start to become clear. We haven't been paid
since I joined six months ago (inaudible) tells me. God willing, we'll be paid today. Mohamad Abed (ph) has been in training for four months. They
gave us weapons, but they're useless, he says. We want heavier weapons, Russian or American. Sunni tribal leaders attended the graduation
ceremony. Politely, they watched. Afterwards, however, it was clear the elders are unhappy. Until now, they haven't been paid one Dinar says
(inaudible). Even if they had been well trained, they disenchanted. They are families can't buy a bag of flour, a gallon of gas or a kilo of
tomatoes. According to Iraqi authorities, all entry-level troops are supposed to be paid around $600 a month. Anbar Governor, Qasim Al-Fahdawi,
blames it on red tape. The Iraqi state is highly bureaucratic when it comes to carrying out orders, he says. American advisors stay at a
discrete distance declining to speak on camera. They're the first installment of the 450 additional troops the Obama Administration is
sending to Iraq; specifically, to Anbar Province, to train Sunni tribal fighters in the war against ISIS. Their presence brings US forces ever
closer to the action as Russian-supplied warplanes roar over the base on their way to bomb nearby targets. With a signature and a thumb print, the
man did get paid on this day, $750,000 Iraqi Dinars or just over $560, just one month's salary after months of training. Long live Iraq, but the
fighters need to make a living, too. And it's still unclear exactly when the US advisors are going to start directly training these Sunni
volunteers, but it really is a drop in the bucket if the compare their presence. The number of US advisors in Iraq, which, at the end of the
summer will be about 3500, compared to the manpower, the resources, and the equipment the United States devoted to the 2006/2007 surge in which they
supported Sunni tribes and then to crush al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and, of course, the challenge posed by ISIS seems to be much greater than that of
al-Qaeda back in the day, Robyn.
CURNOW: And that challenge, (inaudible) talk about it. I mean, the one thing about ISIS is that they're actually quite organized. They've managed
to get services up and running, and they pay wages, and they pay quite well. How do you battle that? I mean, that clearly is one of the problems
facing the Iraqis and the Americans.
WEDEMAN: Yeah. Really the solution is one part military, but it's largely political. It's -- it needs to involve getting some sort of program to
bring the Sunnis of Iraq back into the political system because that was the fertile ground, that alienation of the Sunnis, on which ISIS was able
to prosper, and that really -- that political solution to this problem hasn't really come about yet. There's a lot of talk about bringing Sunnis
into the government, giving them a greater role, creating some sort of Iraqi National Guard to involve Sunni tribesmen, but until now, it's been
largely talk and not a lot of action, Robyn.
CURNOW: Okay. As always, Ben Wedeman. Thanks so much. Ben there coming to us from Baghdad. Thank you.
Well, the final recap of our breaking news story this hour. The fatal shooting at a historic African-American church. Police say the suspect has
been identified as 21-year old Dylann Roof. A relative says law enforcement officers have been at his mother's house. Nine people
attending a Bible study class were killed Wednesday night. A law enforcement official says witnesses told them the suspect said he was there
to shoot black people. The US Justice Department is opening an hate crime investigation into the attack.
Stay with CNN for more up-to-the-minute coverage of this story. Well, that does it for us here at the International Desk for this hour. I'm Robyn
Curnow. Don't go anywhere. I'll be back very soon.
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