Regime Troops Continue Aleppo Advance; Heavy Smog Strands Thousands at Chinese Airport
VANIER: Welcome back, everyone. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Cyril Vanier.</s>ALLEN: And I'm Natalie Allen. Here are the top stories we're following this hour. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says he will resign after a crushing defeat on a constitutional referendum. Renzi thought to reduce the size and power of the Senate. But nearly 60 percent of Italians voted against that. It's considered another win for the populist movement sweeping across Europe.</s>VANIER: In Austria, however, voters rejected populist, electing left- wing candidate Alexander Van der Bellen as their next president. He won Sunday's election in a close race. The other candidate Norbert Hofer was vying to become the EU's first far right head of state.</s>ALLEN: In a surprise resignation, New Zealand's prime minister says he will not run for a fourth term. John Keith says he owes it to his family to step aside and has given everything he can to his job. He's been in power since 2008.</s>VANIER: A U.S. woman says she was gang raped during a trip to Delhi, India last April. Police there say the woman was part of a tour group when she was attacked. At least three suspects are said to have been involved. No one has been arrested. India's external affairs minister is assuring justice for the woman.</s>ALLEN: And breaking news just coming in. At least 11 people are dead after a hotel fire in Karachi, Pakistan.</s>VANIER: It happened at the Region Plaza Hotel and officials say the blaze has now been contained. A doctor at a nearby hospital says the victims were killed by suffocation. 75 people are also injured.</s>ALLEN: And we turn to Syria now. Backed by intense artillery and air strikes, Syrian government troops continue their advance against rebel held Eastern Aleppo.</s>VANIER: Regime forces appeared confident as clashes with rebels continue. The government even telling residents who fled that it's now safe to move back. From Aleppo, CNN's Fred Pleitgen has this look at the devastation that they can expect if they do return.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Driving through a destroyed wasteland that until recently was one of the main battlegrounds in Syria. Aleppo's Hanano District was in rebel hands until last week when government forces moved in with crushing fire power. 13-year-old Hudei (ph) shows me where a rocket landed next to his house and describes the fear he felt. "We were very, very frightened" Hudei (ph) says. Normally we would hide in the basement, but luckily that night we slept on the first floor because that's when two rockets hit right over here. Hudei's (ph) little brother Abdul Karim (ph) is clearly traumatized by the horrors he's witnessed and still weak from living under siege for weeks with almost no food and water available much of the time. As the rebels lost their grip on this place, many residents fled from trying to escape with their lives and not much more. Now, they're coming back. Some haven't seen their houses for years. Khaled Chlorella left in 2012 when the rebels took this district. Now he's trying to salvage any belongings in what's left of his apartment. "I am very sad because everything is either destroyed or ransacked," he says. "We found these pictures under the rubble. Even the walls are destroyed. But we will come back here and rebuild." The battle for Aleppo is far from over, but Syrian government forces clearly have the upper hand. Taking about half the rebels territory in the past week alone, and continuing to push their offensive with massive fire power. (on-camera): Like in so many districts that have been taken back by the syrian military, there is a massive destruction in this part of Eastern Aleppo. But there's no denying the shift in momentum in favor of the Syrian military and also the boost in morale that many of their soldiers have gotten. (voice-over): Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad tell us they believe they could capture all of Aleppo, Syria's most important battleground, very soon. "The rebel headquarters was right here," he says. "So the loss of this district was a big blow to them. You can see how our shelling is pounding them, and that shows that their morale is collapsing." Rebels left behind a makeshift cannon when they fled here last week. So far the opposition hasn't found a way to shore up their defences in the face of this massive and possibly decisive Syrian government offensive. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Aleppo.</s>VANIER: Look at these pictures now. Filmed on Sunday at an airport in Central China. Thousands of people stuck because of thick smog. This was Chengdu's International Airport. It was forced to delay and cancel flights because of that haze as you see. And some planes have to land at other airports.</s>ALLEN: Chinese state news says the runway was closed for almost ten hours. The pollution is so bad, drivers have been told they can only use the roads on certain days. And our meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has more on this for us. You know, we were doing a live shot with Steven Jiang in Beijing, I think it was yesterday, and he was talking about Taiwan, but I was just looking at the smog behind him the whole time.</s>ALLEN: Yes. You couldn't see anything behind him.</s>PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Can you hear, Natalie and Cyril, too, it's almost hard for us to comprehend the severity of what's going on here. And, you know, a recent, fascinating peer review journal study was done at this portion of the world saying 17 percent of all the fatalities in China are related to air quality concerns. And when you think about this, the air quality you saw there in Chengdu, you step outside in such conditions, that same peer study journal saying that with these conditions. If you're to be outside for one hour, it would reduce your life expectancy by 20 minutes. In just one hour. If you're exposed to such elements as they're experiencing in this region of China. So I want to show you exactly what's going on here. When you take a look, the air quality concern, again any time you're above the numbers, 50, that is considered moderate. And then beyond that, you get into unhealthy category. Chengdu left area of your screen there at 223. That's the air quality sitting there in the very unhealthy category in the reds. Of course you're in the unhealthy category. We have several hours per day, almost every single day this time of year when we get to the hazardous category as well across this region of the world. But a lot of this has to do with not only the industry, because you not only have the largest manufacturing sector in the world, the largest population in the world. Put them together and it's a bad recipe here. And, of course, the geography doesn't help with high elevation, kind of dividing the valleys to the east where the highest population resides. So all of the pollutants get trapped right there at the surface. And as Natalie just told you a few moments ago there, driving restrictions in place. The last several years they've been trying to do this to help curve the emission over a few day's period. And typically this works out such where you have the poorest air quality actually take place during the morning and afternoon hours as industry wakes up, businesses begin, thriving across the area, pumping a tremendous amount of carbon into the atmosphere and then you see into the overnight hours, the air quality drops back down to unhealthy only for sensitive and sometimes it even gets down to moderate. But right back into the morning hours and the forecast kind of shows you what we have in store into the reds there being unhealthy over the next several days. Here's what it looks like at this hour. The wind patterns also dictate where the pollution moves to so the pollution doesn't just disappear. If the winds are coming from a certain area that's cleaner, they'll move it and move it downstream to another area. You can clearly see that from Beijing and points to the south and really a fascinating way to look at this is just thinking about the size of these particulates. Combustion particles which are what makes the haze that you see outside are about less than 2.5 microns in diameter. That is about 30 times smaller than the diameter of your hair. This is why this is dangerous. They can easily get into your bloodstream. And, of course, it will cause significant health issues. Estimates put 7 million people losing their lives in the world every single year due to air quality issues. Guys, that's equivalent to four fully loaded aircraft falling out of the sky with passengers every single day. You know, these numbers. And every single hour I should say. Every single day. That's how many people are losing their lives because of air quality.</s>ALLEN: Well, bring on the electric cars. There is a first to do that.</s>JAVAHERI: Absolutely.</s>ALLEN: Beijing government. We'll see. My goodness. Wouldn't that help.</s>JAVAHERI: That would help, a little bit, for sure.</s>ALLEN: Thanks, Pedram. I guess.</s>JAVAHERI: OK. Yes.</s>ALLEN: Pretty disastrous numbers there. Well, Cuba's tribute to Fidel Castro have been loud and full of energy. But the final ceremony for their long time leader was far more muted. We'll look at Cuba's final farewell.