is cnn "newsroom" with robyn curnow. >> hello and welcome to all of our viewers joining us here in the united states and from all around the world. i am robyn curnow live from atlanta. i want to begin this hour with welcome news out of suez, egypt.

crews have been working to dislodge the ship from the canal. cnn just obtained this video, and that appears to show the stern of the ship away from the suez bank, and it got stuck a week ago and has been blocking the canal every since. ben wedeman is live. i want to go to you first. what do you make of the good news, at least the good signals and messaging we are getting out of the region? >> reporter: well, it does seem that on the seventh day there is movement. we just heard the chairman of the suez canal authority saying that the ship has been shifted, he says 80%. it appears the stern has been moved away from the western bank of the suez canal.

clearly the waterway is not free yet but this is significant progress. it happened in the very early morning hours before sunrise, and he did say that they are hoping to actually float and completely free the ship. around 11:30 is when high tide occurs. that's about 3 1/2 hours from now. when that happens they are hoping to move the ever given up to the great bitter lake which is about 30 kilometers to the north of there. he did say that perhaps navigation will be able to resume by noon today. that's difficult to really be confident about but by and large the news we're getting, the pictures we are getting on social media are point in the direction of the resolution of this week-long crisis.

clearly there is work to be done, probably there needs to be dredging in the canal in the area where the evergiven was stuck. the ship itself, there are questions about its sea worthiness at this point, and it seems egypt has gotten over the worse of it at this point. robyn? >> as we look at these images, certainly good news not just for folks there in egypt to try and get through the suez canal, and also for maritime global traffic. give us a sense of the shear scale, and tug boats and various attempts have been made to just try and shift this. >> reporter: yeah, this has been since the beginning of this crisis early tuesday morning, aan

around-the-clock-effort by the egyptians to try and solve this problem. keep in mind it brings in the suez canal $25 billion in 2020 to egypt, but more importantly it's the prestige, it's the representation of a nation that was at stake and much light heartedness has been made about the pictures of a single backhoe trying to dredge around the front of the ship. the fact of the matter is on the other side of the ship there were a variety of tug boats trying to nudge the ship free, so yes, this has been a huge effort by the egyptian authorities, helped by dutch and japanese experts as well, and really egypt has been holding its breath waiting for this to be resolved. this is, as i said, important economically, politically,

symbolically and strategically. robyn? >> and it's good news for a monday morning. we'll come back to you for the latest developments. and anna, the economic impact has been felt around the globe and we will feel it in the coming weeks, and this is a maritime global choke point at the best of times, and good news, no doubt, for many people who have supplies trying to get them across the world. >> reporter: i mean, when you clog up one of the biggest a arteries of trade for the world, you can imagine how that reverberates all around the world, and there has been shortages that we have seen, but also you have to look broader, you know, just the raw material that makes coffee, you can't get it from africa or asia, ikea

furniture, livestock, you name it. over 300 ships have been queuing up on other side of that canal, stuck. some are looking to reroute. it could take up to 15 days to go around via south africa, and that is costly. this is costing businesses, and we're talking all sorts of businesses all over the world real money. and perhaps this ship will be on its way and perhaps we are seeing that reflected in oil futures. crude is currently down 2%, and perhaps we will start to see that with other commodities. there were concerns about coffee, and the affects have been widespread. it will take time, of course, even if that ship gets on its way, it will take time to get all of the ships to where they should be and all of the products where they need to get to. >> anna stewart, good to see you and thank you for that update

there. joining me live from san francisco is captain jim stables from oceantime. good to see you. we are getting these images of dawn breaking over the suez canal and it's good news, isn't it? >> it's great news. this ship could have been stuck for weeks, months, who knows, depending on what kind of equipment they could have got there, but luckily with the high tide they are able to float the vessel with the extra tug boats and now they have the stern free which means they will have access to the rutter and they could use the ship's power to get the vessel's bow off the ground and get her totally floating and again on her way. >> she's essentially being refloated but still stuck, is that pretty much the status? what does that mean about the condition of this vessel? >> yeah, what they are saying, she's about -- 80% of the vessel

is floating free, and that's probably from the bridge area to the stern, and the bow still sounds like its stuck in the debris that's there. i understand that maybe there's hard-packed rock in that area, so they are probably being very careful trying to remove the rock or sand, whichever is holding up the bow so they don't do any damage to the vessel at the time, so they are probably being very careful at that before they even try to use the ship's engines to back her away until they actually know what is under that ship, so they are probably being, like i said, real careful, and probably don't want to cause any damage if any damage has been caused so far, so an extremely good moment now that the she's floating, and the stern is stuck and that's a change in the situation. >> how quickly do you think traffic can start moving again? >> probably immediately. they'll get her out probably to a deeper anchorage or probably

to a dock somewhere so they could go through the vessel and do some type of surveys, either underwater surveys, interior surveys and check for any damage that may have been done to the vessel. it's just a matter of time before they get that vessel completely free and floating and then traffic will resume right back up in a one-way direction at first, and then eventually they will be able to get their two-way traffic going when everything is clear. >> so the logjam will take a while, like any traffic jam. the big questions now will certainly reflect on how this actually happened. there has been a lot of cold water thrown on the fact that this was about a sand storm and heavy winds and really it's probably technical or human error. what do you think? >> from what we can see, we know there's a steering problem with the ship, something happened that caused the vessel to deviate and go into the bank,

and whether it was an excessive speed or a mechanical failure within the seateering gear syst, so it could be multiple problems, and it could be human error and it could be an inexperienced townsman, and the vessel data recorder will record all the voices being spoken at the time that it happened, and that will give us a good idea, and it takes a look at the instrumentation, where the engine is and the speed of the vessel and everything we need to put together this accident. >> just before we go, through think this ship is just too big? it's huge. the size of the empire state building if it was to be flipped up this way. is the suez canal capable of

handling this kind of containership? >> obviously there was an accident, and they have had accidents before and things do happen, but one of the ways they can alleviate this problem is to use what we call escort tug boats, in case she loses power or her steer eage. i don't think they're too big. they are definitely large vessels and need to have critical care when you are handling this ships, and they have to be stkprtrained, and wh do is training in simulators, and we did that here in the united states where we used an institute called my tags and we used pilots that came onboard the simulator and took the sreus vessels in every port they would be coming through in the united states, from san francisco to the east coast and new york and virginia into those ports down

there, all the way down to the southern tip of florida. it can be done and it is being done and you have to do it with the proper equipment, and if they used escort tugs in this situation, that would definitely help the situation. a procedural change for the suez canal. >> thank you, captain jim staples. thanks for your expertise. >> my pleasure. thank you. with covid cases once again rising in the u.s., experts are urging people to continue following the guidelines and avoid travel as the weather starts to warm up. they say safety measures are the key to preventing another devastating wave. now some states, however, already are seeing signs of a new surge including michigan where the infection rate rose more than 50% this week. experts say the surge is being fueled by a number of factors including new variants, more movement and the easing of

restrictions. >> when you're coming down from a big peak and you reach a point and start to plateau, once you stay at that plateau you are really in danger of a surge coming up and unfortunately that's what we are starting to see. we got stuck at around 50,000 new cases per day. went up to 60,000 the other day. that's really a risk. we have seen that in our own country and that's exactly what has happened in europe and several other countries in the european union where they plateaued and started to come back. >> meantime we are learning that the biden administration is developing a system to prove they have been vaccinated. it comes as more americans are really itching to return to normality, as evan reports. >> please, take this moment very seriously. >> top officials warning americans to keep focused on the pandemic, despite the polls of warmer weather and encouraging vaccine news.

reservations on home rental sites are skyrocketing according to those companies. and travel and gathering for holidays like easter and passover are not a good idea, experts say. >> whenever we see surges in travel be that around the holidays and certain situations like we did over the christmas and new year's holidays, and other types of holidays, you get congregations of people, and those are the things that invariably increase the risk of getting infected. >> cases are starting to rise again in some states, like michigan, and they are now experiencing a third coronavirus surge. while more than a quarter of americans have received their first dose of a vaccine, only around 15% are fully vaccinated, but most states continue to expand eligibility guidelines. louisiana among the state's expanding vaccine eligibility to all adults over age 16 on

monday, and still this moment has all the ingredients of a new national surge, experts say. >> i know we are tired and we are asking people to hang on a little while longer in terms of the mask and the mitigation and the strategy so we can get a majority of people vaccinated. >> in michigan officials are making the vaccine available to every resident of the state over the age of 16 starting on april 5th, and they are urging people to get their appointments for that vaccine now, because they say getting the vaccine as quickly as possible is the best way to slow the new surge and could be the best way from preventing the entire country of having a surge of its own. >> thanks for that. coming up here on cnn, myanmar's military accused of killing a number of children, and we have that story up next. e re-made. not all plastic is the same. we're carefully designing our bottles to be one hundred

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fled to thailand on sunday to escape the first round of air strikes. all of this comes after the bloodiest weekend of military violence we have seen since the coup last month. security forces reportedly killed at least 114 people on saturday, including several children. activists call it a day of shame. simon adams is the executive director of the global center for the responsibility to protect and joins me from new york. simon, great to have you on the show and thank you for joining us. we have been watching thousands of people trying to leave now in addition to the escalating violence. what does that tell you about the situation inside myanmar? >> first, thanks for having me on, robyn. this is the bloodiest weekend we have had yet in myanmar. on monday you had the military threatening on national tv they would shoot people that protests, and nevertheless some of the largest protests we have seen in more than 40 cities and

towns across myanmar, and the military responded by shooting dead 114 people, including four children. what we should take away from this is the depth of popular opposition to military rule, even though the military keeps killing people day after day, and internationally pressure is building on the regime as well with the criticism with the u.n. commission of human rights and other people around the world, and i am not surprised people are fleeing but now is the time the international community needs to increase the pressure. >> there's been criticism, and much being hollow criticism and it's not doing anything, and it's certainly falling on deaf ears, and nobody appears to be listening to the security situation. when we talk about the international community, is it more about what china does next or russia even? >> right. i mean, i have said the whole way through that statements of concern are not going to cut it

in this situation. >> no. >> this is a very serious military museum and basically waging war against its own people and it's going to take more than eloquent press statements to turn that situation around, and what is missing at the moment, what is the regional organization doing? it can do a lot more. what is india doing? you asked about the chinese. up to this point the chinese have been the main guarantee of the generals in meyanmar and protecting them at the u.n. security council and so forth, and they have potentially a positive role in trying to get the military step back from the current situation, and from the chinese point of view none of this is good for business and none of this adds up to peace and prosperity on their borders. >> when we look at the momentum, the desperate and violent

momentum we have seen over the weekend, how concerned are you about ethnic militias getting involved and helping protesters? does that increase the opportunity for these to become more violent and conversely giving the military a reason to point fingers and come down harder? >> i don't think the military need any excuses to do that, and they committed genocide against one population a few years ago, and they didn't like the result of the election years ago and they decided to shoot down people in the streets and take back power themselves, and we have seen years and decades of ethnic conflict and it's not surprising that some of the groups have said all bets are off, we were negotiating for a better future with a civilian-led government and now that it's straight up military rule, there's no restraint on us

fighting to defend our people. >> how terrifying must it be? it must be hard getting people to talk because of the fear, and children are being shot in their homes, and people are being raised -- ornery people. there's a depth to this protest movement, across ages and classes and professions that is quite impressive, isn't it? >> it's extraordinary and it's incredibly inspiring, you know, when you see the very inventive ways that people are continuing to defy the military, the way in which people are joining up with one another, and things that were unimaginable a few years ago look mainstream mass kind of support from the people that were ignored a couple years ago, and they are also communicating with the outside world. every day i wake up and i get e-mails and text messages and contacted in other sorts of ways by people inside myanmar who are

desperate and terrified but are still going out into the streets every day to protest against the military regime. >> simon adams, thank you. >> thank you. you're watching cnn. still to come, desperate escape attempt in mowsen beak has people scramble to get away from a days' long attack. we'll bring you the latest of what we know. that's next. this is andy, my schwab financial consultant. here's andy listening to my goals and making plans. this is us talking tax-smart investing, managing risk, and all the ways schwab can help me invest. this is andy reminding me how i can keep my investing costs low and that there's no fee to work with him. here's me learning about schwab's satisfaction guarantee. accountability, i like it. so, yeah. andy and i made a good plan. find your own andy at schwab.

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celebrations are under way on the suez canal. you can hear it there and see it. authorities have just confirmed that massive ship that has been blocking the waterway for a week

now has been mostly dislodged. officials say they hope to fully refloat the vessel in the next few hours. these are dawn images out of the suez. for now they will keep the ship away from the bank. hundreds of other ships carrying billions dollars worth of cargo have been stalled for days now because the canal has been blocked. we are getting a better sense of the carnage of the days' long attack in mozambique. after islamist militants attacked the city of palma. mozambique's military are still trying to secure the city, and the terror group affiliated with isis attacked palma on saturday.

one mother says her son was shot while trying to escape by car with his father and younger brother. the deputy program director for africa joins me now from nairobi. i wanted to ask you about casualty figures. it's still unclear, the scale of this, but we have an idea that it is bigger than originally thought. >> i think security forces in the government say dozens have been killed, and dozens also -- foreign workers -- tens of thousands of civilians have fled the city and possibly hundreds more have been evacuated by boats, from the seaboard down to the capitol.

>> they felt they were abandoned and there was no backup or security, and nobody came to their rescue. >> yeah, i mean, this is a very remote corner of the country. it's a faraway province. it's also, you know, a wild and unforgiving territory, and as far as the security services were concerned, mozambique security forces are, you know, largely in semidisrepair after decades following a peace deal for the previous civil war that ended in the '90s that led to the dismantling of large sections of the security forces. then you put that together with something that has snowballed

and it has been able to mount surprise attacks on security forces every since this started in 2017, and this is where we are today. >> what does this tell you about the capabilities of the group? how helpful is it that they are being equated with isis? >> okay, well, when this first started, you have small groups of attackers hitting remote security posts, villages, and in fact the insurgency was because of grievances where local youth were getting aggressive with religious leaders as far back as 2017, and you have the first attacks that took place and they are using occasional firearms and weapons, and now 3 1/2 years later you have multipronged

attacked with suffocated weaponry, mostly taken from the mozambique security forces' vehicles, and brandishing the flag of the black flag of jihad. there's the transnational and international element of this where foreign fighters and individuals are trying to plug into this thing, but where this thing has come from is a gras grassro grassroots insurgency of sorts, and there's frustrated youth from the coast to the land comes from occupations such as petty traders and small-time smugglers on the coast, and also impickoff ridged fishermen and former farm boys grouping together under this banner is that energizing

them and giving them the confidence to go for the security forces and also appeal to perhaps outside international help from the likes of isis, and whether it's being driven by isis, that's different. >> either way, many lives lost and huge damage done to the economic losses there in that region. i will have to leave it at that, and your sound has been popping in and out there, and thank you for that update. ahead on cnn, why are coronavirus spiking in chile? we'll talk about that, next.

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she's concerned because the variant was detected in the new cases. in the uk, the situation appears to be easing restrictions, and outdoor team sports can resume for all ages. it's a totally different story in france where intensive care units are getting overwhelmed with covid patients there, and doctors in paris say the crisis is so bad they will soon have to decide who gets access to icu's and who does not. current measures are not enough to slow the spread. and chile has the highest coronavirus vaccination rates. chile's president said he will ask congress to postpone elections from april to may. >> reporter: light traffic on the streets. nearly deserted bus stops and

empty parks. around 60 million people including santiago, the chilean capitol after record numbers of new coronavirus cases. >> translator: for the love of chile, the president pleaded with its fellow citizens, let's maximize precautions and follow daily health guidelines. in the country of roughly 19 million, the total number of cases is now approaching a million. inreeka is the chilean health minister is worried. he says intensive care units around the country are at 95% capacity and the new spike in cases is bound to strain the national health system even more. everything is not bad news for chile. well over 6 million people, or

roughly one-third of its population have received at least one dose, and the south american country has the third highest vaccination rate in the world after israel and the united emirates are vaccinating like the uk and u.s. the problem is that many people simply lowered their guards. people have been irresponsible, she said. we thought after getting the first dose we would all be immune and that's simply not the case. the chilean health ministry is asking people to contact police to report parties or other gatherings that are now technically illegal. for now santiago's metropolitan area will remain on lockdown indefinitely. citizens were supposed to go to the polls, and for the first time over the weekend the president said the government will be paying close attention

to the health emergency and didn't rule out the possibility of postponing the process if the situation doesn't improve. raffaele romo, cnn. >> thanks for that. thanks for watching. i am robyn curnow. for all of the international viewers, "world sport" is next. for everybody else, i'll be right back.

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thanks for joining me. it's 45 minutes past the hour. u.s. president joe biden is under pressure to address two key issues during the administration, gun control in the wake of the two recent mass shootings in georgia and colorado, and the migrant crisis at the southern border and the president is hoping to focus more closely on his economic vision for the future. here's jonathan howl on all of that. >> reporter: the challenge of the white house this week is to maintain focus on what president biden considers his most

important priority. from the right, they are hoping to slow the flow of migrants across the border. from the left, democrats are pressuring the administration to do something about gun control. now, the administration does not want to focus on the border situation because there's no quick fix, even if they scramble for more health and human services more appropriate for children, they don't want to focus on gun control because they know democrats don't have the votes to pass an assault weapons ban or background checks, and the white house is working on both fronts and don't have an expectation of it passing soon, and they have an infrastructure and development capitol plan after passing the covid relief bill, and that's something the administration considers bold and achievable.

he will build up the program called back build back better. and then slamming the new voting legislation. the republican-backed georgia law overhauls the states' elections in a way voting rights groups say will disenfranchise voting for minorities. >> if everything is fine why are the democrats cramming this? i will tell you what is going on in georgia is about politics. they are gas lighting these changes, gas lighting these improvements and fearmongering, calling thunderstorm racist and jim crow so they can justify getting rid of the filibuster and cram through hr-1.

>> one of georgia's democratic senators said it's important to act now. take a listen. >> i'm going to do everything i can to pass the john louis voting rights advancement acted and for the people act so we can expand democracy rather than contract it, and the government is taking us back and we intend to go forward. >> he calls it a defining moment in the american nation. opening statements will begin in the coming hours in the trial of dere derek chauvin, the former police officer accused of killing george floyd. >> this is george's city, because when you think of george you think of minnesota. >> uh-huh. >> this is where he was killed by four officers that used barbaric tactics to put them down. they say he died of affixation, but in the black community, that's equivalent to dying of being choked to death.

>> floyd's death sparked dozens of protests last year and set off intense debates on social justice and police accountability, and those issues will likely be addressed again in the upcoming trial. >> the eyes of a movement. one that sparked protests worldwide in the name of george floyd shift to a courtroom in minneapolis. >> anything else for the record? >> now to opening statements in the trial of derek chauvin, the former minneapolis police officer plead not guilty to second degree intentional murder, second degree manslaughter and third degree murder in the death of george floyd. outside the courtroom emotions will be running high. there have already been multiple protests throughout the city. >> they have done so peacefully, assembled and gathered peacefully, and we will continue to expect more demonstrations. >> the destruction that happened

in may of 2020 in the aftermath of floyd's death is still fresh on the mind of city's officials, and it's why the building that houses the courtroom has become a security fortress, and the mayor saying there's more to come. >> residents should be expecting a gradual increase in law enforcement and national guard presence as we progress through the trial. >> the first step in the trial -- >> how does that make you feel? >> i'm okay with that. >> was getting through jury selection, which lasted exactly two weeks. resulting in 15 jurors, 14 of which will be a part of the trial. >> the 15th juror was to make sure we have 14 people show up on monday. >> their identities remain unknown for now. attorneys for the floyd family are pleased the trial can now proceed and wrote, this is not a hard case. george floyd had more witnesses to his death than any other person ever, and there will be witnesses that now will come to

the stand called by prosecutors for the state and defense attorneys for derek chauvin. one video will be shown where floyd was arrested and went to the hospital instead of for jail. a paramedic from the day in 2019 is also expected to testify. >> the whole point here is we have medical evidence on what happens when mr. floyd is faced with virtually the same situation. confrontation by police at gunpoint followed by a rapid ingestion of some drugs. >> our system of justice is on trial, and can we give mr. chauvin a fair trial, because that's essential. can we give the state a fair chance to find him guilty under the law and evidence. >> all the while a city, a family, a movement watching

anxiously over what criminal accountability looks like in the death of george floyd. omar jimenez, cnn, minneapolis, minnesota. four people hospitalized in virginia after shootings in virginia beach. eight people wounded and two died, and one of the deadly shoo shootings involved a police officer who according to the city police chief did not turn on his camera even though he was wearing one. and then in tennessee flash flooding killed four people over the weekend, and rescuers saved 130 people from homes and vehicles. some were clinging to trees and sheltering in their attics as the water rose. as you can see here. let's get the latest from martin savidge. >> the destruction the

floodwaters leave behind is significant. the flooding was limited to south nashville, but in communities in areas where the flash flooding went, the destruction is amazing to see. this apartment complex is just one example. residents here say early sunday morning they heard the torrential rain, and then they heard the alerts on their cell phones and finally they heard the fire alarms going off in the buildings. when they looked out to see what was burning they were stunned to realize their building had been surrounded by raging water and then heard screams from their neighbors from bottom apartments here, because the water trapped them and then the debris began to shatter the windows and now they were being flooded. amazingly everybody got out alive but they won't soon forget that horrible, horrible night. nashville has endured the

tornado, the pandemic, the bombing on christmas and now flooding that has left at least four people dead. martin savidge, cnn, nashville. >> thanks, martin. i want to take us to the latest on the severe weather. hi, pedro, good to see you. tell us about the weather we are seeing particularly across the south here. >> it's been very active. a lot of times, robyn, people give a lot of attention to hurricanes, and the amount of lives lost to hurricanes and tornadoes, but flooding takes more lives than the previous storms with hurricanes and tornadoes. we have seen an active system across southern portions of the u.s., and from 6:00 p.m. saturday night through 7:00 p.m. sunday night the bulk of tremendous rainfall came across the tennessee valley, and four to six inches in the area around

cooksville, and then points just to the south is where a historic amount of six plus inches of rain came down, and now water still is left on the ground and the concern is additional rainfall will work its way across the region. and then the rainfall is seven inches, and it's the highest rainfall total for nashville, and the most rainfall we have seen for the month of march in one particular event, and not just for nashville but areas across the region picking up months of rainfall in 24 to 36 hours. initial phased of the forecast shows dry air giving us a break monday afternoon into tuesday afternoon, and when you look at the cumberland river, water levels just below what they

consider flood stage, and unfortunately the forecast here does bring in around rainfall, and the heaviest rainfall does look to remain across portions of southern tennessee, and chattanooga and nashville can pick up one to one and a half inches of rainfall on top of the seven inches that already have come down, and that's the concern that we get another round of flooding before the water fully recedes. just about 20 plus u.s. states dealing with high wind alerts and we know this is a time of year where you have critical fire weather concerns in place, and temperatures beginning to warm up, humidity dropping across portions of plains, robyn, and we are following that as well for fire weather potentially in the next couple of days. >> thank you for that. thank you for joining me. i am robyn curnow. cnn "newsroom" continues with rosemary church. stay tuned for that. you are watching cnn.

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you are watching cnn "newsroom" and i am rosemary church. we are tracking breaking news out of egypt where officials confirm a cargo ship blocking the suez canal is now free. video sent to cnn from people working with the operation shows the back of the container ship