Israel's Closed-Tight Election Between Candidates
CHURCH: Forty-two people are now reported dead in Iran as the result of heavy rains and flooding. The weather emergency began more than 10 days ago. And it shows no sign of letting up as rain and snow continue to fall. Iranian officials are trying to control water logged areas to prevent further casualties. Twenty-five thousand homes are believed to have been destroyed leaving thousands of people and nowhere to go. And now new emergency alerts and travel advisories have been issued. Army and navy resources are being used to help with rescues. So, let's get more on all this from our meteorologist Ivan Cabrera. And it just been relentless, hasn't it?</s>IVAN CABRERA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Incredible. And those pictures were the cameras were able to get to. There are lot of villages that are just completely cut off.</s>CHURCH: Yes.</s>CABRERA: So, the image we have from those villages are just basically islands at this point. So, it's an incredible calamity obviously with so many dead. Let's talk about why this has been particularly harsh for Iran as far as the rainfall over the last several days. We've got of course the rivers involved as well. When you get that got that much rainfall of rivers, streams, creeks, whatever, they will overflow those banks and then that creates additional flooding along with the reservoirs. The dam reservoirs they have been at and above capacity so if you want a dam to break so what they have to do is they have to discharge that water to prevent that additional calamity and that in turn allows for additional flooding. So, infrastructure as you saw there is just furniture bumping down the streets becoming rivers at this point. Look at this. Just totals on Monday, right. Eighty-five to 74 millimeters of rainfall. That's an incredible amount of rain for a desert area to get in 24 hours. And they not just got that on Monday, but we have to go back to last week where this thing started. And we have this multiple Mediterranean low that usually will just kind of fizzle out across the Eastern Med but that moisture has been relentless. Number two wasn't so bad. Three was certainly a problem, and then the last feature here, notice that moisture just getting pumped in from southwest to northeast and that's the one that brought all that heavy rain over the last several days. Keep in mind, this area typically between January and March get its most of it rains, right. But the problem is the last three months we haven't had much, and so we have a drought on top of desert. And so, as that heavy rainfall over the last couple of weeks has fallen it has hit cement basically. And additionally, we have this. The funneling effect, of course, Rosemary as you know because of the topography there we have the rain is falling on mountains and it goes through the canyons it gets funneled. And when that happens the rivers the flood can really rise rapidly and we don't have enough time to get folks out of harm's way, which is why I think we've had so much unfortunate loss of life there. But the good news is beginning today and the rest of the week much brighter weather on the way.</s>CHURCH: Right. But devastating all the same.</s>CABRERA: Yes, you bet.</s>CHURCH: Thank you so much, Ivan. I appreciate it. We turn now to Israel where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party is trailing his rival Benny Gantz and his Blue and White Party by four seats with only a week until the election. That is according to a poll by Israel's Chanel 13 news. But Mr. Netanyahu appears to have an easier path to forming a coalition of at least 61 seats in order to govern. CNN's Oren Liebermann joins us now live from Jerusalem with for more on this. So, Oren, while Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party's trailing in the polls he still has a path to victory, doesn't he? How is this likely to play out?</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, he's behind by four seats, his rival former chief of staff Benny Gantz is pulling at 32 seats while Netanyahu's Likud Party is at 28 seats. And that's significant. Benny Gantz has been in the lead almost since the election campaign began some three months ago. But it's not just a question in Israeli politics of who comes out with the biggest party. If it is, this election would be over right now. It's a question of who can form that 61 seat coalition. And this is where Netanyahu has an advantage from a whole bunch of smaller right- wing parties that are polling right around four, five, or six seats. Those are naturally or ideologically more fitted to go with Netanyahu's Likud Party and that would be Netanyahu's path to victory come election day. But of course, that's not the end of it. The question is can Gantz who portrays himself and puts his party forward as a centrist party, can he convince some of those center-right parties to go with him. If so, that would be a major blow to Netanyahu. And then one of the other major questions we'll look at on election night is which of these smaller parties isn't able to cross the electoral threshold. If one or two of them isn't able to make it into the Knesset, Israel's parliament, that too could be a major blow to Netanyahu. So those are the questions we'll look for on and after election day, Rosemary.</s>CHURCH: Very quickly, what are the main issues influencing voters in this campaign? And what are they hope to see in a new government?</s>LIEBERMANN: One of the biggest issues is of course Netanyahu himself, the investigations he faces on one side, versus the effective endorsements he has gotten on the other side from President Donald Trump, visits from the Brazilian president going on right now. Netanyahu has turned himself into the biggest issue here. And that is driving many voters. Beyond that, one of the other big issue here is always security. For more than a decade now Netanyahu has portrayed himself as Mr. Security. Gantz himself, his rival, is of course a former chief of staff and he's running with two other former defense ministers who he's trying to challenge that issue of Mr. Security of Netanyahu. Economics, the cost of living here is high, that is also an issue, but obviously the biggest issues are Netanyahu himself, as well as that mantle of who is really in charge of security here.</s>CHURCH: All right. We'll see what happens. Oren Liebermann from Jerusalem, where it is 10.22 in the morning. Many thanks. Let's turn to Turkey now where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a major political setback in local elections. His A.K. party lost control of the capital Ankara for the first time in 25 years. And it also lost Turkey's third largest city Izmir. CNN's Arwa Damon looks at the impact. Turkey's president's party did not quite have the sweeping victory as was best known for. But the president himself is still touting how well his party and its coalition did across the country. But still, there has been a very serious and deliberate message delivered by those who took to the polls. The lost of major cities, the capital Ankara, the country's political seat lost to the opposition party mayoral candidate, albeit by the slimmest of margins. Really underscores many voters' grievances. And key among those are grievances that have to do with the economy. The lira has been in a downward tumble. Inflation is in double digits, and unemployment at 10 percent, 20 percent amongst youth not necessarily a new phenomenon, but it is on the rise. And Turkey's president despite what he says is going to have to pay very close attention to his countrymen's grievances. This is something he himself did acknowledge vowing that both he and his party would do more to try to better the economy and other issues that the country is facing. But this still a potentially very devastating blow. Arwa Damon, CNN, Istanbul.</s>CHURCH: Facebook is removing hundreds of what it calls fake accounts linked to two parties contesting India's election. The social media giant says, quote "coordinated inauthentic behavior is behind the move." The information perch comes less than two weeks before hundreds of millions of Indians go to the polls to elect their next leader. Facebook has stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of false and malicious content. To a Ukrainian comedian who plays the president on TV just might get to be one in real life. Early results show Volodymyr Zelensky that he has the lead in Sunday's presidential election with 30 percent of the vote. Since he didn't have an outright majority with 50 percent, he is headed for the April 20th runoff against this man, current president Petro Poroshenko who got just over 16 percent of the vote. Well, being in the president's family has its perks, but one former White House staffer says one of those perks went too far for Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law. Details of her allegations coming up.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: I know this breaks your heart seeing people who have nothing who come here with nothing, most of them are desperate, they're all carrying these babies? How do you handle this?</s>CHURCH: CNN rides along with U.S. border patrol agents at the southern border. Why they are struggling with the surge of undocumented migrants. We'll have that for you when we return.