Kidnapped American Tourist, Guide Rescued By Security Forces In Uganda; Dozens Of Indian Fishermen Released By Pakistan; Duchess Carrying U.S. Tax Liability Along With Baby
CHURCH: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Rosemary Church. I want to check the headlines with you now. U.S. President Trump is shaking up the Department of Homeland Security as his anger over illegal immigration grows.</s>ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The head of the Secret Service announced his resignation Monday. That departure comes a day after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to resign. U.S. prosecutors are trying to determine if a woman accused of coming her way into Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is a spy. They say she was carrying computer malware, detection devices and thousands of dollars in cash. The Chinese national is facing two criminal charges but has not yet entered a plea. British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet with soon with her German and French counterparts hoping for another Brexit delay at an E.U. summit on Wednesday. Meanwhile, British lawmakers are preparing to take part in European Parliament elections in case the U.K. is still in the E.U. come May 23rd. Iran is now designating the U.S. a state sponsor of terrorism. And American troops in the Middle East, terrorist groups and that's a direct response to the Trump administration announcing it will formally classify Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp as a foreign terrorist organization. All right. We want to recap our top story now. Voting has been underway for more than two hours now in Israeli elections. Polls show a very tight race and candidates have campaigned up to the last minute. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to win a record fifth term, this despite corruption probes and some serious competition. His chief rival, former military Chief of Staff Benny Gantz voted just a short time ago. He served as military chief of staff. He leaves the centrist blue and white party. And opinion polls show he has a slight lead. Still the Prime Minister could have an edge in forming a coalition. And here's why. 120 seats are up for grabs in Israel's Parliament, the Knesset. From there, the president will ask party leader who should be the next prime minister. This in an election that could involve more than six million voters. CNN's Becky Anderson recently toured an area south Haifa. One of Israel's most diverse areas and she visited three towns that are very close together but in many ways worlds apart.</s>BECKY ANDERSON CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: We're in Israel driving the divide. Route to slicing through Israeli society. Our first stop, Jisr az-Zarqa. This is the only remaining Arab towns on Israel's coast. It's one of the poorest and most densely populated in the country. This is -- this is a village which is written with crime, densely populated, life here feels really hemmed in. For many of the Arab men here, fishing is their main livelihood. I want to get down and talk to some of the fishermen here down on the coast.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): No. Netanyahu never gave us our rights and will never do.</s>ANDERSON: Who are going to vote for? You're not going to vote? Why not?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never voted and will never vote. It's helpless. No one will help us. Not Jews and not Arabs.</s>ANDERSON: Well, it's clear that the fishermen here in Jisr are making a living from the sea have very little hope about a future. On land on, get a cross the road from Jisr and out to a blue color Israeli Jewish town. To find out how life is for residents there. Or Akiva is a working class town. Back in the 1950s, this became home to many Moroccan and Romanian, Jewish immigrants. In the 1990s the population here swelled from the post-Soviet aliyah. This is a staunchly</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): He cleaned up here and made history like no other prime minister or president before him.</s>ANDERSON: Well, it's clear that Bibi's head is not on the chopping block</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Benjamin Netanyahu we, love him.</s>ANDERSON: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just for the -- quite simple reason, because I think that he have done to this country in the last 10 years or even more than that, more than anybody else.</s>ANDERSON: Who will you vote for?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. I don't like him.</s>ANDERSON: You're talking about Benjamin Netanyahu.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like -- I don't like what happened in this country now.</s>ANDERSON: Arab or Jew, rich or poor, for all the differences, handover lamps, they're joined by a common destiny here in Israel. And one, they are still figuring out.</s>CHURCH: And many thanks to CNN's Becky Anderson for that report. Well, the fierce fight over Libya's capital is intensifying even further following an air strike by the rebel military on Tripoli's only functioning airport. The U.N. condemned the attack calling it a serious violation of humanitarian law. The area in red on this map shows territory controlled by rebel forces. The U.N. recognized government controls the sections in yellow. As CNN's Nick Paton Walsh explains the recent attacks on Tripoli apart of a surprise offensive by renegade general.</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This reported strike on Mitiga International Airport, the key air traffic hub for Libya doesn't really take the pressure on the capital city, Tripoli to a new level here. We've seen in for days now, the forces of General Khalifa Haftar, the predominant strongman of the east of the country move in around that key city edging towards the southern suburbs that have been perhaps thought this was a show of military strength designed last Friday to perhaps pressure the peace talks going on being spearheaded by the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. But that seems to be less likely since he departed the country on Friday and the peace talks appear to have gone nowhere. The fear being really that General Haftar could begin to send his forces slowly into this urban environment where there are many different competing militias off from pressuring each other frankly for control and it is the main seat of the U.N. recognized government of</s>CHURCH: Well, two more deaths were reported on Tuesday morning following protests outside the military headquarters in Kutum, Sudan. This brings the death toll to 10 since Saturday after crackdowns on protestors by security forces. Dozens are being injured and largely peaceful demonstrations according to human rights watch. Protesters have been calling for the removal President Omar al-Bashir since December. Grounds have been mashed at the presidential palace responding to a renewed call for protests from the Sudanese professional group made up of doctors, lawyers and journalists. We are learning more about the complicated rescue operation to free an American tourists and her tour guide that were kidnapped by armed men and Uganda. As Robyn Kriel reports. It involved the coordinated military operations and a paid ransom.</s>ROBYN KRIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was supposed to be a once in a lifetime dream African safari. Scouting gorillas and Uganda's famous tree-climbing lions. But on April 2nd, armed men entered into Uganda's idyllic Queen Elizabeth National Park and abducted Kimberly Endicott and her guide, Jean-Paul Mirenge. Four others in the group were later released. They demanded a ransom of half a million dollars making threats using the hostages' cell phone. Endicott and Mirenge were taken across the border to the DRC. While Uganda is considered safe and secure, DRC is the opposite. In that country's Virunga National Park, dozens of violent armed groups kidnap for ransom and often these sort of stories don't have a happy ending.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much.</s>KRIEL: But five long days later, Kimberly and J.P. as he's known were rescued by an interagency force consisting of U.S. and Ugandan officials. A ransom was also paid.</s>FRED ENANG, UGANDA POLICE SPOKESMAN: It was an implicit threat of the use of force by our elite teams that we had on the ground.</s>KRIEL: The U.S. military also provided some support to Ugandan Security Services to aid their search including intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets and liaison officers. Finally, this, an emotional reunion disheveled Endicott who back in America is a skincare specialist in Southern California, is in torn</s>CHURCH: Three U.S. service members and a contractor have been killed in a bombing in Afghanistan. It happened Monday near Bagram Air Base, one of America's largest military facilities in the country. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack which targeted a U.S. military convoy, three other service members were wounded. Well, two Russian Navy destroyers and a tanker have reached a base in the Philippines, what is being called goodwill visit but could be part of a power play by the Kremlin. It comes as Manila squares of China in a territorial dispute. But it could also be a shot across the bell of the U.S., a key Philippine ally. CNN's Brian Todd has more from Washington.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These ships are a menacing reminder of Vladimir Putin's military ambition, a show of force in a region already in the center of tense relations between the U.S. and its enemies. The three Russian Navy ships are now docked in the Philippines including two high-tech anti-submarine destroyers.</s>BILL HAMBLET, DIRECTOR OF PERIODICALS, UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE: I think Putin is looking to give the United States something to worry about.</s>TODD: It's the second time this year that Russian warships have docked in the Philippines. And for America, it symbolizes and worrisome shift in alliances in that region. For decades, the Philippines was a key U.S. military ally in Asia. American kept one of its largest overseas naval bases there. But recently analysts say, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has started to pivot away from the U.S. toward a closer alliance with Putin. Even though his navy is conducting large scale joint military exercises with American forces right now. Meantime, the Russian President expert say, he's having only moderate success in expanding his navy but he hasn't proved one capability which threatens American forces.</s>HAMBLET: They've been building new ballistic missile submarines and they have also been building nuclear power and fast attack submarines.</s>HEATHER CONLEY, DIRECTOR:  CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: We are seeing, you know, cruise missiles coming from vessels in the Caspian Sea. They are testing a lot of hypersonic cruise missiles, a lot of them again, submarine based.</s>TODD: Putin is jumping right into the middle of a region now front with military tension. China has laid claim to several island in the South China Sea, has even built some islands from scratch and place military installation on them. The U.S. has tried to curb China's aggression there. And Duterte whose navy occupies one island in that chain recently threatened a suicide mission against Chinese forces which were spotted near that island. Experts say Putin is eager to exploit these tensions for his own game and eager to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its ally.</s>CONLEY: His arrival in the Philippines with these three navy vessels is to remind the United States that Russia is a global power and he separate the Philippines from the United States in any way. Can he be a disruptor?</s>TODD: How can America counter this effort by Vladimir Putin to divide it from its allies in Asia? Experts say the U.S. has to stay its course in the region, keep holding joint military exercises with its allies. Keep engaging diplomatically with countries like the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia. Make them realize that America is the friend they want to have in the region and not Vladimir Putin. Brian Todd, CNN Washington.</s>CHURCH: And still to come. New details about the woman accused of trying to come her way into Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort. And why prosecutors thing she may be a Chinese spy. We're back with that in just a moment.