U.N.: 366,000 Refugees Entered Europe this Year, More Coming; Australia Pledged to Take Refugees, Step Up Military Against ISIS
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Frustrated and desperate, refugees make a run for it in Hungary.</s>ERROL BARNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll take you live to Turkey for an exclusive look at the dangerous ways that migrants are trying to get into Europe.</s>CHURCH: Plus, in the U.S., she's out of jail and into the limelight. The defiant anti-same-sex marriage clerk speaks out.</s>BARNETT: We want to welcome our viewers in the U.S. and those tuned in from around the world. I'm Errol Barnett.</s>CHURCH: Good to have you back. I'm Rosemary Church. This is</s>CNN NEWSROOM. BARNETT: We begin this hour with Europe's migrant crisis. A short time from now, the president of the European Commission will lay out a plan for dealing with the massive flow of people.</s>CHURCH: Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is calling for a quota system. She wants all E.U. countries to take in their fair share of migrants.</s>ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: We really need to discuss about a joint and overarching asylum policy and we, Sweden and Germany are of the view that binding quota actually are to be applied so that refugees can be fairly distributed to the European member states. Unfortunately, we are a long way off this target.</s>CHURCH: The United Nations estimates that 850,000 migrants will cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe between 2015 and 2016.</s>BARNETT: Now that is a hefty number, but one, the U.N. high commissioner on refugees, says Europe should be able to handle.</s>ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES: If Europe would be properly organized it would be a manageable crisis. 4,000 or 5,000 people a day in a union with 508 million people. In Lebanon, we have one-third of the population of refugees. So I think we need recognizing that these became a very serious crisis in Europe. It is a very serious crisis also largely because Europe is not organized to deal with it because the asylum system has been extremely dysfunctional and, in the recent weeks, completely chaotic.</s>BARNETT: Our senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, joins us live to talk about this. And, Ivan, while politicians debate a comprehensive plan, and we do expect to hear new information in the next few hours, thousands of migrants and refugees suffer. What is happening where you are today?</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Errol, Europeans are grappling with this flood of migrants coming across the borders, well, they better get ready. Judging by the scenes we saw in a Turkish port city of Izmir, there are many, many more Syrian refugees on the way, and it does appear that the business of smuggling people in broad daylight in fact across the sea from Turkey to Lesbos, which is visible over my shoulder, that business is very much booming.</s>WATSON (voice-over): This is how some are smuggling themselves to Europe, cramming more than 30 people at a time in broad daylight on board an overcrowded pontoon boat, armed with life jackets and inflated inner tubes in case of an accident. This footage filmed secretly a week ago off the coast of Turkey. Turks, who appear to be smugglers, shove the overloaded boat out into the water. Seconds later, a man appearing to pilot the boat abandons ship. The inflatable rubber boat turns into circles until the migrants figure out how to steer themselves. It motors off to the Greek island of Lesbos, an informal gateway to Europe. And it looks like many more Syrian refugees are on the way. In the Turkish port city of Izmir, on Tuesday, scores of Syrians sit in cafes and sidewalks with backpacks full of belongings and garbage bags full of life jackets. (on camera): The passage by sea is big business here. Cafes are selling life jackets and you have Syrians trying them on in the street just waiting for their trip across the water. (voice-over): This Turkish shop owner does not want us filming his business. Several Syrian refugees who don't want to be identified for fear of reprisal back home tell me they just arrived in Turkey from Syria within the last couple of days. (on camera): Aren't you afraid? These are bad boats? You know?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MIGRANT: I know. I know.</s>WATSON: Something terrible could happen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MIGRANT: I know.</s>WATSON: People are dying in the water.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MIGRANT: What can I do? Stay in Syria? They are taking guys to the army. I don't want to fight with anyone. I don't want to kill.</s>WATSON (voice-over): They say it costs about 1300 U.S. dollars to buy passage to a Greek island. Among those awaiting a call from a smuggler, many families with children. When I ask a father if he is afraid his kids will drown at sea, he answers, "They will die anyway if they stay in Syria." On the Turkish coast last week, the refugees just kept coming, some walking with children down to the water. Under the olive groves, they wait for their chance to escape.</s>WATSON: Now, Errol, I think what was striking is that the Syrians that I was meeting in Izmir yesterday were not people who have been living in Turkey now, some two million Syrian refugees and Iraqi refugees, many in refugee camps who have been living here in some cases for years fleeing the conflict across the borders. The people I was speaking with just arrived the preceding day from Damascus. This is a fresh wave of people determined to make that potentially deadly sea crossing to Greece and then move on to Europe. They are paying substantial sums of money to try to make this journey again, 1200 Euros or $1300 per person to make this trip. And what was striking is that some of them have said it has gotten more difficult in recent weeks. One young man telling me he has made four attempts to cross the water. This would be his fifth. One of the refugees said, "We have to get moving now because this is pretty much the last month of good weather to make the sea crossing and then it will be more dangerous due to wind and currents and storms" -- Errol?</s>BARNETT: Which would add to that sense of urgency so many of the refugees and migrants have, as many nations try to figure out how to limit the people, the smugglers and those profiting from such an act. Ivan Watson, joining us live, thank you very much. Rosemary?</s>CHURCH: Further to the west, in Hungary, hundreds of fed-up migrants in a cramped holding camp gathered up their things and took off running. CNN's Arwa Damon was there.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A frantic dash after breaking through a police line.</s>DAMON: "Stay together," this man shouts, carrying his daughter as they charge into the corn field. No one knows where they are going, just that they need to get far away. They had spent hours, for some, days, waiting at a holding area that was supposed to be temporary and just couldn't take it any more. Stumbling over uneven ground, shouting out the names of the war zone they fled.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Syria, Iraqi.</s>DAMON: Jubilant, breathless, defiant, and desperate to move. (on camera): People are in a panic. They are worried that the police are going to use violence to get them back into the camp. And you can hear the sirens right now causing people to run even faster, especially those with the kids. They are really struggling to get away. (voice-over): Fumbling through thick undergrowth. The police close in, forcing the refugees to scatter. Split into two groups, families lose each other but this is no time to stop. Drained of what little energy they had, the police eventually catch up but the refugees keep going.</s>DAMON: A sister and brother lose their shoes, rocks digging into their tiny feet, but they don't complain. Their mother carries the youngest. Unable to comfort him, she ignores his cries.</s>DAMON: After hours of walking, the police finally block their path. Again, they try to push through --</s>DAMON: -- crushing bodies, screams, babies crying. The police eventually convince them to stay. They bring food and much-needed water. Negotiations lead to a compromise. Buses to take them elsewhere for the night and then, in the morning, they are told, a train to the Austrian border. A breakout, driven by sheer mental, physical, emotional exhaustion, having travelled this far unable to cope with waiting any longer. Arwa Damon, CNN, Hungary.</s>BARNETT: Now as so many refugees fled all at once, other camera crews recorded an appalling scene. We want to show it to you. A Hungarian camera woman appears to kick and deliberately trip refugees running through the field. At one point, she even trips a man carrying a young child.</s>BARNETT: It is unbelievable. The far right television station she works for says she will be fired. In a statement, it echoed what so many are saying on social media, "The camera operator's behavior was completely unacceptable."</s>BARNETT: Now, Australia's prime minister is stepping up his country's commitment to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and help stems Europe's migrant crisis.</s>CHURCH: At a news conference, Tony Abbott pledged to expand his military's fight against ISIS, a group he says is a major cause of the refugee crisis. He also said Australia will take in 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq.</s>TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Today's commitment to take refugees on a permanent basis will be one of the largest commitments made to date anywhere in the world. But hundreds of thousands of people are in camps and they need urgent assistance. So in addition to these new resettlement places, the government is also announcing that we will directly pay for the support of 240,000 displaced people in countries neighboring Syria and Iraq through the UNHCR and other agencies.</s>BARNETT: And on that point, Abbott says the program will focus mainly on refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and in Turkey.</s>CHURCH: In the United States, 172 passengers and crew members about to leave Las Vegas on Tuesday are probably feeling pretty lucky right now. They walked away from could have been a disaster. The pilots of British Airways flight 2276 aborted takeoff when the left engine burst into flames on the runway.</s>BARNETT: Imagine seeing that when on a plane. Minutes later, everyone on board got out. Firefighters doused the flames. 14 people suffered minor injuries, mostly from sliding down the emergency chute. CNN's Dan Simon tells us, quick thinking is credited with keeping injuries to a minimum.</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was a quick reaction by the pilot and the crew. Obviously, they knew right away there was something wrong and they quickly deployed the emergency chutes. We happened to be in Las Vegas working on another story. Once we realized this was a potentially serious situation, we raced over to the airport. And it was surreal for a while hanging out in the international terminal and, all of a sudden, we saw lots of ambulances show up. This was an hour after this all happened. We figured mostly everybody had been evacuated at that point, but it's, no, they were still assessing people and lots of passengers were coming out. Thankfully these were minor injuries. But from what we understand, when people were going down the emergency chutes, some had, you know, some friction injuries basically going down. They may have burned their elbows and such. So the paramedics were tending to them. Everyone seemed to be in relatively good spirits. One passenger was in emotional distress. This was someone who had some smoke inhalation. She looked really torn up. You can imagine, looking at that video, how frightening that must have been. We saw video of passengers literally running for their lives, going down those chutes and just running away from the aircraft.</s>CHURCH: Unbelievable. Federal aviation officials are investigating the cause of that fire. It all comes down to timing. Imagine if that plane had taken off.</s>BARNETT: It would be a much different story. We'll see what the cause was. Still to come we'll hear from the county clerk in the U.S. who went to jail rather than grant permission for same-sex couples to get married.</s>CHURCH: Plus, Apple is scheduled to make a big announcement today. We have a full report on what to expect. We're back in a moment.