Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: Thousands Gather Across Syria to Celebrate Fall of Assad Regime; Concern Grows Over Unknown "Drones" Over New Jersey; Amazon to Donate $1M in Cash, Stream Event on Amazon Video; Syrians Search Morgue for Missing Loved Ones; Aging in the Space; AI Weather Forecasts More Accurate. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired December 13, 2024 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00]
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Fredricka Whitfield, and this is the CNN Newsroom. Just ahead, thousands of people gathered across Syria to celebrate the fall of Assad, the Assad regime, one week after the rebels took control of Damascus.
The Biden Administration could be closing in on a Gaza ceasefire deal before Inauguration Day. And a drone mystery. Why are so many of them flying over the skies of New Jersey? We begin with an appeal from Syria's Rebel Leader Mohammad Al Jolani, is urging fellow Syrians to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime without firing shots.
You're looking at the moment when accidental gun fire caused chaos in the northern City of Raqqa on Thursday. Witnesses tell CNN a man lost control of his machine gun and then mistakenly opened fire on bystanders. A local journalist says one person was killed. And in Damascus, earlier, people gathered to pray.
This is the first Friday prayers held since the regime was overthrown. Amid the prayers, a diplomatic push is gaining momentum to ease Syria's transition of power. Jordan will host a weekend summit with foreign ministers from Western and Arab nations. And America's top diplomat plans to be there.
Ahead of that U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has been meeting with his Turkish counterpart on the future of Syria.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're very focused on Syria, very focused on the opportunity that now is before us and before the Syrian people, to move out from under the shackles of Bashar Al Assad to a different and better future for the Syrian people, one that the Syrian people decide for themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: I want to bring in now CNN's Salma Abdelaziz. Good day to you, Salma. Tell us more about the country wide celebrations, the rebel leaders, messages and does it perhaps signify a more moderate approach in the days ahead?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's start with the celebrations, because this is such a massive moment for Syria. I believe we have more images to show you. This is the first Friday. So of course, Friday being the day off, being the day of prayer, the first Friday free of a President Bashar Al Assad of course, since the uprising began.
We saw that after Bashar Al Assad fled Syria, even with rebels taking clear control of the capital. There was hesitation, there was still fear. There was still trepidation. On the ground, now nearly a week into this new reality, you're going to see people gathering on the ground, embracing each other, celebrating this moment, speaking openly for the first time, and that is absolutely key.
It was under Assad's regime that people believe that even the walls had ears. So that opportunity to meet friends, to meet family, to celebrate this moment, to speak of loved ones lost, to speak of a future of Syria, and to do that without fear of retribution or repression. This is absolutely enormous for Syrians, and it begins to give them that moment of acceptance, of understanding this has truly happened.
There is a sense of disbelief on the ground. When you look at those images, it is so reminiscent of where this all began, nearly 13 years ago, with an uprising, a revolt against President Bashar Al Assad that was, at the start peaceful, rather than the fighting, the conflict, the war that we have seen.
So, it's very difficult, really, to just over emphasize just how important this is today to see these gatherings. Now, of course, there's been warnings from Syria's new rulers, Syria's new leaders, not to put any celebratory gunfire into the air, not to use any weapons, not to cause any violence or disruption.
That's of course, people are still on edge. You mentioned that incident in Raqqa. Very much these authorities are trying to avoid anything more like that happening. So, they are asking yet again, for people today to enjoy this moment, to gather peacefully, to share their joy without any conflict.
WHITFIELD: Yeah, incredible contrasting scenes throughout. Salma Abdelaziz, thank you so much. All right, Palestinian officials say at least 33 people were killed in a deadly Israeli strike on a residential block in Central Gaza on Thursday.
[08:05:00]
The Israeli military says a senior terrorist who led attacks against civilians and troops was the target of the strike on a densely populated refugee camp. The IDF has launched several strikes on the camp, including multiple U.N. run schools, housing displaced people. And top American diplomats are sounding cautiously optimistic about a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The U.S. Secretary of State discussed the issue with Turkey's Foreign Minister on Friday. Antony Blinken says he is seeing encouraging signs that a deal is possible. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also voicing optimism after meeting Israel's Prime Minister. Jeremy Diamond has more on that.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, with just over a month left in President Biden's term in office, his National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sitting down with the Israeli Prime Minister to see if a hostage and ceasefire deal can be reached before Biden leaves office.
And Sullivan struck a tone of cautious optimism, saying that he believes that there is optimism in the air. That there is cause to believe that a deal can indeed be reached, and that he believes the Israeli Prime Minister is indeed ready to reach a deal. He gave a number of reasons for why things have changed, for why there is more optimism in the air.
He said that following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, that Hamas seems to have changed its negotiating posture somewhat, recognizing that it was no longer receiving the support of Hezbollah, and that perhaps other actors that it had hoped would come into play in its defense ultimately will not.
At the same time, he also indicated that there were changes on the Israeli side as well, noting that Israel has killed Hamas' Leader Yahya Sinwar, and that some of its other military successes in Gaza may have made Israel more willing to reach for an agreement.
Now at the same time, Sullivan did caution that the United States has said that a deal was close, that a deal was at hand before, and ultimately it didn't happen. So here was that more cautious side that he voiced.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: We have been in a place before where American officials have stood before podiums and said we are close, and we were close, but we didn't get there. I believe we are close again. Will we get there? It is not yet clear whether we will or we won't, but we are determined to try to drive this across the finish line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DIAMOND: And I asked Jake Sullivan what new concessions Israel and Hamas have made at the negotiating table so far. He refused to confirm or comment on any specifics about the negotiations, making clear that they are trying to keep this close to the vest at this critical juncture.
But at this critical juncture, he is now headed to Doha, Qatar and to Cairo, Egypt, where, of course, the two key mediators in these negotiations are based, as he said it, to try, and quote, put us in a position to close this deal this month. And so that is ultimately the aim here of the U.S. Administration, to get to a deal potentially as soon as in the coming weeks. And of course, to get the Americans who have been held hostage in Gaza out as well. He actually confirmed tonight that of the seven Americans who are in Gaza, we know that four of those have already been confirmed dead. The three other American hostages, Sullivan said, are indeed believed to be alive.
Some hope perhaps now for their families, that they can get out as part of this deal, if indeed it can be reached. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv.
WHITFIELD: All right to France now, where Francois Bayrou has just been named the country's next prime minister. President Emmanuel Macron's office made the announcement a short time ago, and it follows days of political dead lock after Former French Prime Minister Michel Barnier was ousted in a no confidence vote last week.
Let's get straight to Paris, where Melissa Bell is standing by for us. So, Melissa, what do we know about Bayrou?
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Francois Bayrou has been around in French politics for decades now. A centrist French politician. He now becomes the fourth prime minister this year to take over at a particularly difficult time, but he is considered a politician who can federate as many of those disparate French political forces as possible.
It's unclear, whether it will actually work in the long term, and his government can hold longer than Michel Barnier did, which had a historic low, a historic record. Rather for brevity, it was just three months long. Whether Francois Bayrou can stay longer, much depends, of course, now on what happens in Parliament.
He's going to have to name a new government that the three very different blocs in Parliament, can agree upon, or at least that none can vote down. But he is considered a centrist. He is well respected in French politics. He has been further to the right, at times, under certain presence, closer to the left, at others, forming his own middle party the modem -- Many years ago.
[08:10:00]
And so, he is considered both to have the stature and the center position that might allow, if anyone could do it, a prime minister to take time -- to take control at this very divided time in French politics.
WHITFIELD: So, is that another way that people are also interpreting that perhaps he has advantage as it pertains to negotiating, since he could appeal to so many sides?
BELL: Exactly. I mean, that had been said of Michelle Barnier, who, of course, was well known for being that Brexit negotiator for Europe during those difficult years, widely respected within Europe and even he didn't manage to get the budget passed. So yes, he is considered someone who can talk to all sides, who is respected by all sides. But his big trouble is going to be the one that faced the last government, and that is going to be getting through the budget for 2025 for the time being. There is an agreement in place to allow the government to keep the lights on, but at some point, he is going to have to get a budget through, and that is going to be the real test of whether he can unite these very different parties.
The big problem we have here in France is that ever since the dissolution of the assembly back in June and the election afterwards. There has been this political dead lock between the three main parties in the National Assembly. Not only is there no clear majority, but each can be taken down by the two others, and none of them agree on terribly much at a time when public expenses need to be cut and difficult decisions made, none of the main parties seeming willing for the time being to make them.
So, the new prime minister is going to have this very difficult task of naming a government that can achieve those cuts that are needed with little time, because it is expected that by June of next year, the dissolution of parliament can happen again, and it may well be that the assembly goes back to the voters.
He's also unlikely to benefit from the advantages of a majority in pushing through anything that he hopes to get through. So, a difficult time ahead, but it is considered that Francois Bayrou might just be one of the few men capable of doing it.
WHITFIELD: All right, we shall see. Melissa bell in Paris. Thank you so much. All right, we still have no answers about the mysterious drones spotted over New Jersey in recent weeks. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI say there is currently no evidence the drones pose any threat to national security or have a foreign connection.
A White House spokesman says some of the objects may actually be manned aircraft operating lawfully, but lawmakers and residents in New Jersey want better answers than that, and they're demanding a more thorough investigation and details. Let's bring in now CNN's Polo Sandoval with the very latest.
All right, so they want more information, more proof that it's not a danger. But still it hasn't been publicly said. Who is responsible? What is responsible for these drones? Are they drones?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here we are weeks into this, Fred, what you're hearing from New Jersey state officials is all right. So, you have the White House telling us that this is not a threat, then what is it exactly. So that really is the source of their frustration.
So, we'll get a little bit more into what folks in New Jersey have to say. But for now, let's really focus on what we've heard from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The federal agencies that are basically overseeing much of the investigation that's been going on here as they try to identify what these things actually are. They're airplanes, or are they drones. The FBI and the DHS statement that you referenced a short while ago, they said that they are still deploying, the federal officials are still deploying, not only equipment, but also personnel to the area to try to find out if in fact, the sightings are confirmed drones, or what they describe as inaccurate sightings, possibly an airplane.
But what's also interesting in that statement is they said that weeks into the sightings, the feds are yet to corroborate any drone sightings with electronic detection. Now what does that mean? I spoke to a member of the company to drone, which is a private air spray security company, and they are in the business of drone detection, especially on authorized flights.
An official there told me that there are multiple ways of identifying whether or not these are drones. You can start with radio frequency, basically detecting the calms between the aircraft and the remote on the ground. If it's not autonomous. You can use cameras. You can use also radar, which we know how that works.
And then finally, you can use acoustic systems. So lately, according to this drone expert, those are becoming more inaccurate because drones have evolved in terms of technology, and those are -- they basically emit less sound these days. So those are some of the options that federal officials have in terms of trying to get that electronic confirmation as to whether or not was been flying over the skies of northern New Jersey are in fact, drones, and then potentially answering the question of who or what could be behind those flights.
And then finally, I just got off the phone with an official in Rockland County, New York, which is just across the New York, New Jersey state line.
[08:15:00]
And a spokesperson for that county confirming that they have been now for sightings there, which would be the first reported just north of New Jersey. So that's certainly interesting. Officials there expect to notify the feds and requests that the FAA, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security basically expand their investigation to include folks in portions of New York State as well.
WHITFIELD: Oh, boy.
SANDOVAL: Yeah.
WHITFIELD: OK, the mystery intensifies.
SANDOVAL: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Polo Sandoval, keep us posted. Thanks so much.
SANDOVAL: Thanks Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right, still to come. Donald Trump's team aways what to do with the convicted January six rioters, who gets a pardon, and who stays in prison. And while most teenagers have school and friends on their minds, there are more than a dozen teenagers in Russia who are political prisoners. Their story a little later.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Welcome back. The most serious charge against the suspected killer of the United Healthcare CEO is second degree murder. But experts say prosecutors still could step that up to first degree murder, depending on where the evidence leads them. Police say when Luigi Mangione was arrested, he had with him a 3d printed gun that pairs with shell casings found at the crime scene in Manhattan.
While fingerprints from the same spot are also a match for his. Mangione is being held in Pennsylvania and is fighting a move to extradite him to New York, where he faces five charges, while Mangione awaits the next stage. We're learning more about his stay in prison, as CNN's Jason Carroll reports the alleged killer is not interacting with the other inmates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Luigi Mangione is fighting extradition to New York while that happens, this is the prison where he's being held. It's the State Correctional Institution at Huntington, the oldest operating state prison in Pennsylvania. Mangione cell looks much like the one you see here, according to a law enforcement source.
His actual cell is 15 by 6 feet. A Department of Corrections spokesperson says he's in a single cell and not in solitary confinement. He is not interacting with other inmates at this time he has a bed, sink, toilet and a desk with a seat.
STEVE BOHNEL, PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE: It's always interesting to see, you know, a prison in your backyard that you know, frankly, most people wouldn't be able to pick out of a map or wouldn't know the name of. And now everyone's interested in the type of food he's eating. You know, the cell block that he's in.
CARROLL (voice-over): Meals at the facility are served three times a day, 06:15, 10:40, and supper at 05:15. On the menu, Mangione has a choice between chicken parmesan and a dish called pizza beans. The Department of Correction says Mangione has taken his meals in his cell and is not interacting with other inmates adding, all inmates are afforded time outside their cells even if they are a higher custody level.
[08:20:00]
Mangione's case has received a great deal of national attention, so perhaps no surprise, he is already known to some inmates. That type of notoriety is also an added security concern at a correctional facility.
JUSTIN PAPERNY, PRISON CONSULTANT: Any prison state or federal, is a predatory environment, and there could be prisoners who are there for a long time, perhaps looking to get in the media, get some attention. So, he's got to learn to enjoy his own company in a little cell with a desk, with a toilet, with a little -- with a pen to be able to write with a sink, because he will not be around prisoners, as I see it, for quite some time, the prison just can't risk it.
CARROLL (voice-over): Huntington's inmates have made headlines before Mangione. Cosmo Dinardo, who was convicted of murdering four men and burying them on his parents' property, served part of his life sentence there. Nick Yarris also served time there. Yarris was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 on rape and murder charges.
His sentence overturned in 2003 due to DNA evidence. He says his time in Huntington are years he will never forget.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He decided to send me to Huntington prison, the hardest prison in America --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was he going to do before that? I don't know, but he made sure I went to the place that they broke you.
CARROLL (voice-over): Mangione's time there could be measured in weeks as prosecutors push to have him brought back to New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARROLL (on camera): The Department of Corrections also says that man Jon is allowed to have visitors there at the facility, but so far, the only person to visit him has been his attorney, and that was Thursday afternoon. Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
WHITFIELD: All right, for months, Donald Trump has been promising to pardon the people who have been convicted for the January 6th attack on the U.S. capitol. But Sources tell CNN, Trump's team is still trying to figure out exactly what those pardons will look like.
There seems to be support for freeing people convicted of non-violent crimes that day, and it appears a large number of the pardons will happen very quickly after Trump is inaugurated. And while Team Trump tries to figure out who to pardon, a new Watchdog report is debunking claims that FBI moles started the riots. CNN's Evan Perez has that.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR U.S. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The Justice Department's Watchdog says that there were no undercover FBI employees at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 riot, rejecting claims from allies of President-elect Donald Trump, who have for years suggested that the violence that day was provoked by federal agents.
The Justice Department's Inspector General issued a report on Thursday, finding that there were 26 people who were paid FBI informants who came to Washington with Trump's rally seeking to overturn the 2020 election results. Of those 26 people, 3 had specifically been tasked by the FBI to report on specific domestic terrorism subjects who were set to attend the Trump rally on January 6th.
And one of those informants actually entered the Capitol itself while the other two were outside on the grounds near the Capitol. The findings are part of a long-awaited report from the inspector general, who launched an investigation into the bureau's preparations just days after the 2021 attack from Trump supporters who are trying to stop the confirmation of Joe Biden's presidential victory.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have repeatedly clash with top officials at the Justice Department and the FBI over the riot, most notably over suggestions that the FBI informants or employees actually helped instigate the attack. FBI Director Christopher Wray has flatly rejected the claim that the bureau orchestrated the violence.
The inspector general also found that the FBI did not gather intelligence from all of its field offices. Some of that intelligence from informants could have helped the U.S. Capitol police and other law enforcement agencies be better prepared for the protests that day, and the Bureau actually inaccurately told the Congress that it had actually done that.
Now no informants have been charged with any crimes, according to the inspector general. Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.
WHITFIELD: Amazon has confirmed to CNN that it is planning to donate $1 million to Donald Trump's inauguration, and it will make a $1 million donation in kind by streaming the event on Amazon Prime Video. Company Founder Jeff Bezos is expected to visit Trump in the coming days.
Bezos and other tech leaders are seeking a closer relationship with the president-elect after years of friction. On Wednesday, Meta confirmed that it donated $1 million to the inauguration fund. This came two weeks after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, met privately with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. All right, CNN is on the ground in Syria.
[08:25:00]
And my colleague Clarissa Ward is in the middle of celebrations of freedom in the country's capital, her report is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, returning to our top story. People across Syria have been celebrating the fall of the Assad regime on this the first Friday since Bashar Al Assad fled the country. I mean, look at the crowds there. The rebel leader is making an appeal to fellow Syrians.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABU MOHAMMAD AL JOLANI, SYRIAN GENERAL COMMANDER: I would like to congratulate the great Syrian people on the victory of the blessed revolution. I call upon them to take to the squares and express their joy over this achievement, but without firing bullets or causing fear among the people. Afterwards, let us turn our efforts towards rebuilding this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: His message comes after hundreds of people took to the streets of Raqqa on Thursday they were celebrating when a man lost control of his machine gun and then opened fire on bystanders. Witnesses say at least one person was killed, 15 wounded. And in Damascus today, Friday prayers were held for the first time since the Assad dictatorship was overthrown.
CNN's Clarissa Ward is in the Syrian capital and filed this report from the celebrations just a few moments ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A woman wails on the floor of the -- hospital. My mother, she's been missing for 14 years, she says. Where is she? Where is my brother? Where is my husband? Where are they? Dr. Ahmed Abdullah shows us into the morgue, where about 35 bodies have been brought in.
Discovered in the military hospital days after the regime fell. They are believed to be some of the last victims of Bashar Al Assad. Take a look. This is the crime of the regime, he says. Even in the Middle Ages, they didn't torture people like this. Another man points to their tattered clothing evidence, he says that most were detainees at the much feared, Saydnaya prison. Even in death, they are still only identified by numbers.
[08:30:00]
Everyone here heard about the horrors that took place in Assad's notorious prisons, but to see it up close is something entirely different.
WARD: A lot of them have bruises, have horrible wounds that seem to be consistent with torture. I just saw one woman retching as she came out of the other room, families are now going through trying to see if their loved ones are here.
WARD (voice-over): There's not enough room for all of them in the morgue, so a makeshift area has been set up outside. More and more families stream in. The light from their cell phones, the only way of identifying the dead. My only son, I don't have another, they took him for 12 years now, just because he said, no, 12 years, my only son, this woman shouts.
I don't know anything about him. I ask Allah to burn him, she says, of Assad. Burn him and his sons like he burned my heart. A crowd swarms when they see our camera. Everyone here has lost someone.
WARD: All of those people are asking us to take the names of their loved ones to help them try to find them.
WARD (voice-over): It is a mark of desperation, such is the need for answers, but finding those answers will not be easy. At the military intelligence facility known as the Palestine branch, officers burned documents and destroyed hard drives before fleeing, but their terror was on an industrial scale.
Troves and troves of prisoner files remain. It will take investigators years to go through them. Below ground more clues etched on the walls of cells that look more like dungeons.
WARD: So, you can see this list of names of -- it looks like 93 prisoners here, there's also a schedule for keeping the cell tidy and just graffiti everywhere, people trying to leave marks for someone to find.
WARD (voice-over): Down here, insects are the only life form that thrives. It's clear that anyone who could survive this will never be the same again. The cells are empty, but the doors are finally open. The quest for answers is just beginning.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WARD (on camera): The one thing the Assad regime did do a very good job of was documenting its own crimes. And so, the question now is, how long will it be until you start to see human rights groups investigators coming in to Syria to try to start the vast process of pouring through all that data.
And then what's the next step towards getting some sort of justice for these people? Could the Syrians choose to do what the Ukrainians did, which was essentially to open themselves up to be under the jurisdiction of the ICC. That would be the hope of many Syrians.
But the disappointment as well for a lot of people you talk to here is that Bashar Al Assad is very unlikely to ever see his day in court, because, of course, he is now in exile in Moscow.
WHITFIELD: Clarissa Ward. And we apologize to our viewers. We wanted to bring you Clarissa's latest piece that she filed about people celebrating, that obviously was people mourning, particularly after visiting morgues and prison cells looking for their loved ones.
All right, let's further our discussion, however, about all that is going on in Syria. Joining us right now from London is Sanam Vakil, who is the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Great to see you. So just as we saw in that piece, the search for prisoners, missing family members underground prisons.
And also, there are vast amounts of chemical weapons, and the search for that is also very vigorous. How are these differing searches in your view, going to be conducted?
SANAM VAKIL, DIRECTOR OF THE MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA PROGRAMME AT CHATHAM HOUSE: Well, thanks for having me. You know, this is a real process that is very much underway, and the leading group, HTS, under the leadership of Mohammad Jolani, is trying to create process in a moment where there appears to be a vacuum of power and a lot of joy at what could be a real opportunity for Syrians the search for justice.
He's trying to bring in accountability. Going forward, there will certainly be a court process, and he's also trying to prevent individual justice from being sought.
[08:35:00] It's, of course, going to be quite difficult, as you said, with Bashar Al Assad and his family being in Russia to see how that justice process is going to go forward. And this is where the United Nations and their support for the political transition will be very important.
WHITFIELD: Yeah. I mean, bringing in accountability, that's going to be a tremendous undertaking, you know. And as for those chemical weapons, there are more than 360 tons of mustard gas that Syria admitted to making, but has never been fully accounted for. And "The Washington Post" is reminding us that there are five tons of missing precursors for the Nerve Agent Sarin.
So, you mentioned the U.N. might be able to assist. Do you see that there might be other international bodies, perhaps, like something tantamount to the IAEA, if not the IAEA, you know, getting involved, and how will that be facilitated?
VAKIL: Well, I think the leadership right now is trying to work quite closely with external powers, including Turkey, that has a huge amount of contact and interest with HTS. But also, this weekend, there is a conference being held in Jordan that will be convening regional partners to support the transitional government and thereby bring process.
There is a role for the IAEA, but I'm sure also there is a role for regional governments to support the search for chemical agents and nerve gasses. The Israeli government has also been taking its own initiatives to target over the past few days. Weapons facilities and depots under the sort of auspices of trying to prevent these weapons from getting into unknown hands.
That is, of course, a violation of serious sovereignty. But in this vacuum of power and no real centralized government, this is a challenging moment.
WHITFIELD: Yeah. What kind of confidence should there be in this new leadership in Mohammad Al Jolani and the rebel group, HTS, as you referred to, which is Hayat Tahrir al Sham. Do Syrians at large feel a level of confidence relief in the days ahead? We're seeing the celebrations now, but there's always the tomorrow and the next day after that. How are they feeling? How should people be feeling?
VAKIL: Well, I think in this moment, there is clear elation for the majority of Syrians that have lived under a hugely repressive state and really been suffering at the brutality of Bashar Al Assad dictatorship, and you of course, featured that very powerful story of so many individuals experiencing personal tragedy and loss of their loved ones.
So, confidence and elation, you know, sort of get mixed together amid the uncertainty. I think people are trying to give the leaders a bit of time and space. There is an Interim Transitional Government that is coming together, and there is a three-month transitional process that has been declared.
It's very important that the leaders that emerge, Mohammed Al Bashir has been appointed as the caretaker prime minister, work with the United Nations. There is a process there, a road map for a political transition that can create a pluralistic political system that can bring in as many groups as possible.
So, this is about keeping to that process, but also, you know, accountability coming from within Syria, but also with support and pressure from external powers as well.
WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you so much. Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, appreciate it. All right. Since the war in Ukraine began, more than 20,000 people in Russia have been detained for standing up against it.
Russian human rights group says more than a dozen of them are under age, because people as young as 14 can be prosecuted for such crimes as treason and terrorism. As Alex Marquardt reports, they learned the -- way, the hard way, rather of what it means to speak out.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Arseny Turbin was your average Russian teenager, a top student who enjoyed electronics. He built a radio transmitter for a class project. Today, he is one of Russia's youngest political prisoners, arrested at 15 years old and now facing five years in a penal colony, found guilty on terrorism charges.
He was accused of joining a Russian para military group fighting for Ukraine. He admits he contacted them, but denies joining. On Russia's national day in June last year, he staged a solo protest. Posting on YouTube saying, I'm against Putin and freedom for political prisoners.
[08:40:00]
Now, Turbin is one of at least three dozen teenagers who are jailed in Russia for political reasons. Among Russia's almost 3000 citizens facing criminal prosecution on political grounds. Human rights group OVD-Info has tracked these cases and told CNN there are at least 16 teenagers that they know of, but almost certainly more who were detained after Russia invaded Ukraine and the Kremlin dramatically cracked down on dissent, including by miners.
We spoke with Turbin's mother Irina in Russia, who had pleaded with her son not to speak out, knowing what could happen.
IRINA TURBINA, MOTHER OF RUSSIAN TEENAGE PRISONER: Of course, I'm terrified for him, and I'm afraid that part of him will break but I want to believe that he will be strong until the end.
MARQUARDT: You shared some of the letters that Arseny wrote to you from detention, and in one of them, he says, please, I'm asking you to do everything you can to make sure I get released. I dream of the day when I'll be released and can hug you. How painful is that for you as a mother to read that.
TURBINA: I cry because I understand that I am doing the best I can already. I knew I couldn't do anything I have already done, and am doing everything I can. But this is not enough for him to be free.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): In another letter Turbin wrote yesterday, after lights out, an inmate pushed me into the toilet. Today, he punched me twice in the head while I was in bed. The situation is very difficult. Kevin Lick knows all too well about the brutality of Russian prisons. After being arrested at 17 years old and sent to a labor camp with a four-year sentence.
KEVIN LICK, FORMER RUSSIAN PRISONER IN RUSSIA: They handcuffed my hands, with a rope, and started to beat me. They put out a cigarette on my hands. There's a scar left.
MARQUARDT: They physically abused you?
LICK: Yes, they abused, to try to take to get answers out of me.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): Lick had taken photos of a military base across from his apartment building. He says he wanted to document history as the Russian military prepared to invade Ukraine. Pro regime media published this video of his alleged equipment. Lick was accused of wanting to send the photos to the intelligence services in Germany, where he is also a citizen, but he denies this.
LICK: My first two months of imprisonment, I got held and I was held in solitary confinements. Now, when I'm looking back, of course it left scars. A psychologist told me that I have PTSD.
MARQUARDT (voice-over): In prison, he says he was packed into cells with other inmates and lost a huge amount of weight. Then he was suddenly released in August, as part of the historic international prisoner swap, when "Wall Street" Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich and Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were also freed.
In protesting Putin and his regime's war in Ukraine. Charges against teenagers range from arson to sabotage and treason. The youngest case that OVD-Info has told CNN about is of a 14-year-old unnamed girl accused of desecrating a military symbol. In late October, OVD-Info says that 15-year-old Sebastian Sultanov was arrested and is now being prosecuted for anti-Putin and anti-war graffiti.
He like both Kevin Lick and Arseny Turbin, are supporters of opposition hero Putin nemesis, Alexei Navalny, who died in February in a penal colony. Lick marched alongside Navalny widow Yulia in a pro- democracy demonstration in Berlin just weeks ago. He's now embracing a new life of activism.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Incredible! That was Alex Marquardt reporting. So far, Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service has not responded to our request for comment regarding the allegations in that report. The Kremlin denies the existence of political prisoners in Russia. More news after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:45:00]
WHITFIELD: All right, this week, we've been spotlighting pioneers of business, sport and tech as part of the new CNN series, "Visionaries". Over the last few days, we've been at Argentina with a pioneer of conservation, and today, CNN's Anna Stewart introduces us to someone at the forefront of our future in technology. Lila Ibrahim, the first COO of AI company, Google DeepMind.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LILA IBRAHIM, THE FIRST COO OF GOOGLE DEEPMIND: One thing I have really learned is I'm not very good at predicting the future, but I'm very good at building it.
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It seems fair to say becoming COO of a prominent AI company is not a life Lila Ibrahim had ever pictured for herself.
IBRAHIM: Growing up as a child of immigrants in the Midwestern part of the United States with English as my second language. I was like the dark-haired kid in my school.
STEWART: You always felt like an outsider?
IBRAHIM: Always felt like an outsider.
STEWART (voice-over): From the American Midwest to rural Japan as an exchange student and then back to the U.S. to study electrical engineering at university, where she felt like an outsider once again.
IBRAHIM: There weren't that many women. By the time I was in my early 20s, I was so used to just -- had to get comfortable with bringing a different perspective into everything.
STEWART: You have an engineering background. I wonder how that experience, that knowledge, influences how you make decisions in the corporate world?
IBRAHIM: I became an engineer, because I thought it was a combination of math, art and science. And along the way, I actually really enjoy working with people, and what I've enjoyed about my engineering career is the ability to bring all of that together. And being an engineer has taught me to ask the question of why and what are we trying to achieve.
So that if you can really understand a problem, you can figure out what the right solution is. Rather than just throw a bunch of solutions at an undefined problem.
STEWART (voice-over): Lila would build her career from computer processing company Intel to a venture capitalist firm, and then as the first President and COO for online learning platform Coursera before hearing of an opportunity unlike any other.
STEWART: Google DeepMind came calling in 2018, four years after Google's acquisition. Do you remember what you thought when this first passed your desk?
IBRAHIM: But when you have a chance to work on such a transformative technology as AI and in a role as I'm in, which is the first COO, first Chief Operating Officer of Google DeepMind. How do you say no? So, I actually engaged in the conversations, but very slowly and intentional.
I wanted to understand what were the founder's vision for what AI could make possible, and what were the risks. And I'd go home, and I think I take my daughters in at night saying, what kind of legacy will I leave in the world? Can I bring my 30 years of technology experience and social impact into this moment in AI?
And at the end of the day, after 50 hours of interviewing, I felt that there was no better place to build AI responsibly than DeepMind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Oh, and you can see more from Anna's interview with Lila Ibrahim on "Visionaries", premiering this weekend. All right, coming up, could space hold the key to the fountain of youth? Probably not, but studying rapid aging in space could help us understand more about getting old, the details straight ahead.
[08:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: All right, you might think aging faster is a bad thing. Well, it seems to be what happens when you're in space, but scientists are hoping studying the phenomenon in space may lead to break throughs here on Earth and beyond. CNN's Nick Valencia has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- in the spirit of exploration --
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outer space may hold the answer to some of humanity's greatest questions, what causes aging and can the process be altered. Human Tissue samples called organoids are now in orbit at the International Space Station, and identical samples are back on Earth at Oxford University Space Innovation Lab.
This experiment will allow researchers to compare and analyze data from both samples to study the aging process and the impact of micro gravity on it.
GHADA ALSALEH, SPACE INNOVATION LAB: So, this is a very new project where we work between, actually the frontier between the space and the ology.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Inside the International Space Station, a box containing human tissue samples serves as a controlled environment.
ALSALEH: The books have a small computer and all the detection material that we need to get the measurements we wanted, and we can actually control that and see all the data coming, all the time.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Researchers don't require assistance from the astronauts aboard the space station, as they can automatically gather the information from their laboratory on Earth.
ALSALEH: It could be able to measure few things without interacting anyone.
VALENCIA (voice-over): Over the years, astronauts have suffered from muscle loss, joint and bone issues and problems with their immune system. Researchers found that this is similar to an age-related disease.
ALSALEH: And this led us to ask the question, if the space might provide us with an accelerating aging model. And if it is the case, that mean we can actually be able to study aging very faster, because this has happened in very short time while aging and our -- needed different years.
VALENCIA (voice-over): With future missions planned to send humans to Mars and beyond, the impact of space travel on aging will become a key issue. Nick Valencia, CNN.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck. He is cheering for you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We estimate you've completed your marathon right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Love those images in space. All right. New artificial intelligence weather models are making weather forecasts faster and more accurate than ever, but they might struggle when it comes to predicting extreme weather events. CNN's Meteorologist Chad Myers explains.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we've all seen weather maps that look just like this, but how do we know it's going to be clear in Texas? Well, the weather models tell us this. We look at them, and this is one that I made a long time ago. I was an intern with the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Maryland, 39 years ago, and this is what the weather model looked like.
Now we use some human intelligence and sort of that Celsius to Fahrenheit, and kind of figured some things out, and knew it was going to be a 55-degree low. But then super computers took over, and everything changed. It wasn't just digits. It wasn't just numbers.
Now we could make graphics. Now we could take all of this data and push it forward, five, seven days, make it so much better. But this was still human intelligence. Now we have artificial intelligence. This is what our model looks like right now. This is how good we've come from just numbers to this.
[08:55:00] But can artificial intelligence make this even better, make it more accurate. And the answer so far is yes. The Google GenCast looks like out to 15 days, it will help our old models do even better. In fact, out, forecast them in many locations. Now the problem here, with this artificial intelligence model is that we're only looking back 40 years and saying, OK, if this happened today, what's going to happen tomorrow.
But is the last 40 years really going to be indicative of the next 40 years really is going to look like maybe not, but at least we have some hope, some at least increased accuracy hope that we could see things get better with artificial intelligence and the human element here, obviously.
With the National Weather Service working in tandem, keeping everything together, making it better for us and keeping us even safer with the weather.
WHITFIELD: All right, Chad. And in addition to all of that, I appreciate that he has data from his internship 39 years ago. I love that. All right. Thank you so much for joining me here in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. "Connect the World" with Omar Jimenez is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
