Scramble to Clear Russian Athletes Headed for Rio; Security Concerns in Rio Ahead of Olympics
VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause, with the headlines this hour.</s>VAUSE: Doesn't of Russian athletes are on their way to Brazil but many don't know if they'll be allowed to compete. The team left Moscow just a few hours ago. More than 100 Russian athletes are banned from the Olympics after an investigation found widespread evidence of doping. We're joined now by Clare Sebastian, live from the airport in Moscow. Clare, given the cloud of controversy over the Russian team or the entire team, this was a fairly subdued sendoff.</s>CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John, there was a celebratory mood here today at the airport. The flight took off about an hour and a half ago. But despite that mood of celebration, it's still unclear just exactly who will be competing. Some have been cleared, but the full list has yet on to be published. And so the question remains, is Russia doing enough to fight against doping, to crackdown on it, to show the world that it is ready to do the right thing. We know the Russian Olympics Committee have set up a special commission to investigate this. Work, apparently, has already started. But I asked the head of the Russian Olympic Commission today, Alexander Zhukov, he was here and was talking to the athletes, and I asked him to explain exactly why they efforts should be seen as effective. Take a listen.</s>SEBASTIAN: Why should we believe that Russia is willing to change and fix the problem with doping?</s>ALEXANDER ZHUKOV, DIRECTOR, RUSSIAN OLYMPIC COMMISSION: I have no idea why you should believe. Because of</s>SEBASTIAN: Are you worried that situation that --</s>ZHUKOV: I think now that the Russian team is the cleanest team in the world. And this team is just going today to Rio.</s>SEBASTIAN: Are you worried that the uncertainty has --</s>ZHUKOV: Thank you.</s>SEBASTIAN: So there you have it, John. The cleanest team heads to Rio today, fighting talk there from the head of the Russian Olympic Committee. I spoke to some of the athletes today, as well. Just a week ago, Russia didn't know if any of its athletes would get that chance. But they feel the weight of that extra pressure to win now since so many of their colleagues aren't going to be able to go -- John?</s>VAUSE: Clare, thank you very much. Clare Sebastian there with the latest. And, of course, security at the Rio Games is always an issue. For more on that, Bobby Chacon joins me now. He's a former FBI special agent and spends part of his time living in Rio. It's a great city, but it's also a very violent city. If you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, you can be in a bet of a tricky situation. If you are going there, what's your biggest concern, your being mugged or being hit by a terror attack?</s>ROBERT CHACON, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: I would say the street-level crime is going to be the most prevalent risk you'll take in Rio. And probably the one you can take most precautions against. It's much hard to anticipate where a Paris-style attack might take place, for instance. But if you're going and you're worried about the street- level violence, then you practice some operational awareness, you know where to go, where not to go. And in Rio, while we are some dangerous areas, and I've lived there for two years now, those areas are pretty obvious, and it's pretty telling where to go and where not to go. During the Olympics, it'll be easier because it will be --</s>VAUSE: The neighborhoods change quickly. You know when you --</s>CHACON: Very quickly. They mark it.</s>VAUSE: One thing, though, is that we have the situation with the police. The police haven't been paid for a great period of time. So clearly, you know, they had their own concerns. I was telling people, don't count, it's too dangerous. If you don't have the support of the local police -- I know they've brought in the military and other law enforcement as well. But if you don't have on-the-ground support from the local police, is that a big concern?</s>CHACON: It was a big concern until several weeks ago when the mayor of Rio declared a state of public calamity. And that basically asked the federal government for several millions in aid and they released these monies so the police, the fire, the first responders got their back pay. They're paid up now. What will happen post Olympics is any --</s>VAUSE: Another story there.</s>CHACON: But I think through the Olympics, they have a satisfied police force right now.</s>VAUSE: One of the criticisms, one of the concerns about Brazil and I guess Rio as a whole is that it doesn't have this post- 9/11 mentality when it comes to security. I guess in particular at the airport and there has been some issues with the security arrangements at the airport, not necessarily of the Brazilians making it, but of the International Olympic Committee.</s>CHACON: And I think it's because South America has been, in a sense, far removed from all of the terrorism. When I was working counterterrorism at the Athens Olympic, for example, I live in Greece for about a year prior to the games, and we had the Madrid bombings in March, and we had the Olympics in August in Greece. If was very close in time. The Greeks woke up, if you will, in March when that happened. I don't think Rio has had the same type of, you know, event, thankfully. And they're too far removed I think from what is happening in Europe to give them that wake-up call. But I think the military and police are so used to dealing with violent level drug issues, if a Paris-style attack happened where you had coordinated gunmen moving through the streets, I think the operational and tactical events of the Brazilian units are capable of handling that.</s>VAUSE: And, you see what's already happened in Brazile, in Rio, they had the World Cup two years ago, the fact that conferences are there, and apart from the logistics and other things working out organizationally, at least security-wise, they've gone off without a hitch.</s>CHACON: They did, they did. In 2009, they started their pacification program. And I think they've had a very large experience in dealing with street-level crimes and shoot-outs in the streets and things like that. So I think if there was going to be a coordinated attack like happened in Paris, I think the police would be able to put it down fairly quickly.</s>VAUSE: OK. Bobby, thanks for coming in.</s>CHACON: Thank you.</s>VAUSE: Appreciate it. Enjoy the games in Rio.</s>CHACON: Thanks.</s>VAUSE: OK. And this just in. Australian officials have confirmed to CNN that the pilot of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 had plotted a course to the southern Indian Ocean on his home flight simulator. That's the general area where officials believe the Boeing 777 disappeared more than two years ago on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. This confirms what "New York" magazine had reported a few days ago. Officials stress the news does not reveal what actually happened to the plan, which still has not been found, despite an extensive and very expensive search. We'll bring more details on that as we get them. A short break. When we come back here on NEWSROOM L.A., FOX News host, Bill O'Reilly, under attack because of some criticism he made of Michelle Obama's convention speech.