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U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 116,000 with Worries of Second Wave; U.K. Makes Food Fund U-Turn after Football Star's Campaign; Trump to Sign Executive Order on Police Reform; Common Steroid May Reduce Risk of Death from COVID-19; Beijing Sees Fresh Cluster of Novel Coronavirus Cases; U.S. Unrest Shines Spotlight on U.K. Racism; South Korea: North Korea Blowing Up Liaison Office "Unprecedented"; English Premier League to Return Wednesday. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired June 16, 2020 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:00]

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HALA GORANI, CNN HOST (voice-over): Hello, everyone. You're watching CNN. I'm Hala Gorani. This hour, the Black Lives Matter movement expands.

Violence erupts in some cities, while protesters expose racial tension and inequalities while governments around the world are starting to feel real

pressure to act. We'll tell you what steps they are taking.

Also this hour, China is scrambling to contain a new coronavirus cluster. Cases spike in several U.S. states and Donald Trump says, don't test; then

you don't have any new cases.

And North Korea blows up a symbol of cross-border cooperation, showing the collapse of relations on the Korean Peninsula.

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GORANI: Well, we'll have all of those stories in a moment.

But first, an interesting development here in the U.K., where the COVID crisis, alongside the Black Lives Matters and the new awareness of racial

injustice and inequality, is having a real impact through a 22-year-old black football star, who almost single-handedly forced real policy change.

Boris Johnson's government has U-turned on a major social policy decision. Downing Street has announced that a COVID summer food fund for hungry

children will take place. That's following pressure from Manchester United's Marcus Rashford over the lack of free meals during the holidays.

Johnson had originally rejected the call to extend the food vouchers for low income families program but as you can see it is a very different

environment and governments who have faced criticism in the past are feeling the heat. They're feeling the pressure and are perhaps feeling

compelled to act on some of these social justice programs.

Let's get more from CNN's Nic Robertson, he has more.

What talk to us about what led to this environment where people are keeping a close eye on some of the programs, how they disproportionately impact

minority children and not just in the U.K.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. I mean, look, the prime minister has been criticized for the way that he's handled the

Black Lives Matters movement and protests. The way he talked about it and decided to have a commission to investigate racial inequality and announce

it in the British newspaper rather than a forward discussion and the cabinet is under pressure for the way it's handled COVID and the way he's

handled Brexit.

And that's been showing in the poll numbers. So perhaps little political surprise the prime minister is feeling very sensitive on this particular

issue and perhaps that's why we're getting the U-turn.

But I think it speaks to this very eloquent young football star, Manchester United England. He wrote an open letter in "The Times" newspaper to the

prime minister, saying reconsider this issue.

The government has made much of the fact that it's decided to give $80 million to help provide additional food for needy families around the

country. But it's the schools program, what's known here as the free school lunches, this program that Marcus Rashford as a child understood because

his family benefited from it.

A single mother, five children, he managed to get through school, his mother managed to feed the family with the benefit of this program. He very

eloquently says it's needed now. In his article, he really, I think, just connects all of the issues so well.

When he speaks about people ask me how did I feel after I scored this match-winning goal against Paris St. Germain that knocked them out of the

Champions League, he said, look, we went on to lose the next round against Barcelona. It is not just one action, it's keeping those actions going.

And he says he understands how children need this. The prime minister says he understands the issues of families. But it's Marcus Rashford's voice

that's caused, it appears, the prime minister to U-turn against the background of dwindling popularity for the prime minister.

GORANI: Right. We're certainly seeing that policy change is coming. And it's a 22-year-old black football star, who pointed out what was wrong with

leaving some of these kids out of the lunch program over the summer. Darren Lewis is here to explain who the player is.

And why, Darren Lewis, you believe the government has acted, they have been called on making policy decisions in the past. They haven't always done so.

What's different about this time?

DARREN LEWIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hala, I think the difference this time is that Marcus Rashford has put on a (INAUDIBLE) master class, as Nic said a

second ago.

[10:05:00]

LEWIS: He's been speaking to the newspaper, to the British media on TV. He is using social media particularly well as well. This is key in this

experience when we're talking about footballers using their lived experience to be able to affect policy.

He's been talking, as Nic was suggesting about his own lived experiences, being the son of a single mother and all of the sacrifices that she had to

make, sometimes going without food so he could be able to be fed and obviously go on to become a superstar for one of the biggest clubs in the

world in Manchester United.

GORANI: All right. Well, Darren, this is just a fascinating turn of events because we're seeing the world of sport, the world of entertainment, all

these voices are starting to rise as a result, to the fore, as a result of some of the protests and the COVID crisis.

It's the intervention of the two crises that's forcing some governments to act and change policy and, Darren, you'll be speaking with our Don Riddell

later on for more on this story.

We have been talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and the growing demand for police reform across the United States. It has now reached the

White House. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on policing in the coming hours. That includes a database for tracking

officers' use of excessive force.

Mr. Trump says the order will be, quote, "pretty comprehensive." but a source tells CNN it will be relatively modest, leaving the heavy lifting to

Congress. Again here you have an example of a leader, even Donald Trump, who has been very unsympathetic to some of these protesters, is feeling

pressure to act.

We're seeing with Boris Johnson, we are seeing it with President Trump. They need to project this image of a leader responding to public protests.

Joe Johns, you're at the White House. Talk to us about what to expect from the executive order.

Will it lead to some real change?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're right, that it's clear this White House thought they needed to do something because the

president was approaching the irrelevancy zone on some of the issues that had been sweeping the country.

And so now they're coming forward with this executive order the president is expected to sign. He's also expected to have some law enforcement

officials from around the country. And they were even saying -- they were hoping to have some members of families of people who have died due to

police violence here at the White House.

Not clear on what kind of success they have had on arranging those kinds of people coming. Nonetheless, this executive order is going to be modest in

nature. It's not going to approach some of the very difficult issues that are being dealt with in prospective legislation up on Capitol Hill.

But it's going to include about three main areas. There's the certification and credentialing column that the White House is emphasizing. That's the

idea of creating best practices around the country in police departments.

There's also information sharing -- that's what you talked about at the top -- that would be creating a database in order to know which police officers

around the country have been found to have engaged in inappropriate conduct with an eye toward keeping them from going to other police departments.

Then there's this third piece that's called co-responders. That's the idea of, instead of sending the police to every single call, how about sending

health and medical professionals, people who can deal with things like mental health problems, physical health problems, addiction problems, so

on?

So those are the three areas that the White House executive order is expected to deal with. As I said, up on Capitol Hill, they're dealing with

some of the stickier issues, things like chokeholds, which is something that's very controversial for certain police departments.

There's also this question of qualified immunity, which essentially gives police officers a pass, if you will, against being sued for certain actions

that they take, and other such questions up on Capitol Hill.

Those are stuck between the Democrats and the Republicans. And it may take some time to iron them out. Nonetheless, here at the White House, a start

on some of these issues and a chance for the president to show himself as relevant.

GORANI: Thanks very much, Joe Johns live at the White House.

We'll be speaking about COVID, the use of steroids among other things and this resurgence of new cases in China.

[10:10:00]

GORANI: But as far as the U.S. president is concerned, I wanted to run sound from Donald Trump about how perhaps one way to not register more

deaths and cases from COVID is to not test as much. Listen to what the president of the United States said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: All right. Well, that was the U.S. president. As I mentioned we'll speak more about the coronavirus pandemic a little bit later in the

program.

But back to the Black Lives Matter movement. It is continuing to ripple through the United States, bringing the country to a real crossroads as it

confronts a racially charged past and police brutality at the same time. Dianne Gallagher takes us through the final moments of one man's life cut

short by yet another confrontation with police.

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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside this Wendy's in Atlanta, a candlelight vigil filled with frustration and a new call for

justice for another life cut short at the hands of police.

Here the community gathered in the same place where Rayshard Brooks lived his final moments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody right here is saying enough is enough.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): The over 40-minute long interaction between Brooks and police, after he was found sleeping in the Wendy's drive-through,

caught on camera, showing since fired officer Garrett Rolfe shooting him twice in the black after Brooks appeared to shoot a Taser at Rolfe while

running away from him following a scuffle between Brooks and officer Devin Brosnan as they tried to handcuff him.

And now a 9-1-1 call revealing what happened before authorities arrived on the scene.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a car -- I think he's intoxicated and he's the middle of my drive-through. I tried to wake him up but he's parked dead in

the middle of the drive-through. So I don't know what's wrong with him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he breathing, ma'am, do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he woke up, looked at me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does he appear to have any weapons from where you can see him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no; I think he's intoxicated.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GALLAGHER (voice-over): And as protesters march, demanding a change in Brooks' name, his family still reeling from his loss, asking for the same.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMIKA MILLER, RAYSHARD BROOKS' WIDOW: Do they feel sorry for what they've taken away?

That's what I want to know, you know.

If they had the chance to do it again, would they do it the same way or would they do it totally different?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Meantime, the Fulton County district attorney said there will be an announcement of possible charges against the two officers

tomorrow.

PAUL HOWARD, FULTON COUNTY DA: There's really no reason for Mr. Brooks to end up dead because he fell asleep in the drive-thru or that he was

intoxicated. Whatever those incidents might have added up to, it certainly didn't merit the final outcome in this case.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): After Brooks' death, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed executive orders, including major changes in police use of

force.

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D-GA), ATLANTA: On Friday evening, we saw the murder of Rayshard Brooks. It is clear that we do not have another day,

another minute, another hour to waste.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: All right. That was Dianne Gallagher reporting.

So we're talking about these protests against police brutality but you see in many countries around the world protesters taking down statues of

historical figures they believe to be racist.

Well, we're seeing in New Mexico in the United States demonstrations, where protesters there tried to take down a Spanish conquistador statue as they

were confronted by a militia. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI (voice-over): Authorities say the incident left one person critically wounded and he remains in hospital. Albuquerque police have

arrested one man, who is facing aggravated battery charges.

The governor says she is horrified and disgusted by the violence, tweeting, "There's absolutely no space in New Mexico for any violent would-be

militias seeking to terrorize New Mexicans."

Albuquerque's mayor says the statue will be removed as an urgent matter of public safety.

Coming up, a key coronavirus model used by the White House rolls out more bad news for the United States. The death toll from the disease could rise

to 200,000 in just the coming months.

Plus in the latest sign of deterioration between North Korea and South Korea, the North has blown up a building used for peace talks. Why the

regime has done this and why now. We'll be right back.

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GORANI: There is a new study that suggests a commonly used steroid could reduce the risk of COVID death by one-third in the sickest patients. The

findings come from a U.K.-based study searching for COVID-19 treatments when someone is infected. One expert calls it a breakthrough. CNN senior

medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is joining me from Atlanta.

Elizabeth, steroids have been used in the treatment of COVID patients over the last several months. But here you have kind of the data supporting the

notion that this perhaps should be a more commonly used -- not cure but treatment for very sick COVID patients?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I was texting with a doctor in New York City and she said, look, the doctors in

New York were using this because we know that steroids often work in these kinds of situations but we weren't sure. We didn't have data.

But these were very sick patients, some of them on the verge of death, so we used them.

She said it's great to have data to support this. It sort of lets us know that we're walking down the right path. Not entirely surprising that

steroids would work for these very sick patients on ventilators. As I said, it's worked in other similar situations. But it's always good to have a

study to back up what you're doing in real life.

GORANI: And what kind of -- what kind of steroid is this?

COHEN: It's a type of steroid that's very commonly used in the hospital, it's used for all sorts of reasons. So these are drugs that doctors have a

lot of experience with, which is one of the reasons why they use them on COVID patients.

GORANI: And are -- I remember at the beginning of the pandemic -- and forgive me if I'm medically off here -- but there was some talk some of

steroid found in an anti-asthma medication, that that could serve as a pretty effective alleviating medication or medicine for COVID patients.

Is that what we're talking about or something different?

COHEN: So this is a steroid that's used for a variety of things. I mean, this is a steroid that is in every hospital pharmacy, that's used for a

variety of things. I don't think that it's -- it was used for any one particular disease.

Again, when I brought this up, it was not surprising to any of the doctors. This is the kind of situation in which you want to try to try steroids. But

the problem is steroids are tricky. They're sensitive. You don't want to hurt people with them because there is that possibility.

But again, these are patients, many of whom were at the very end -- possibly at the end of their lives. So you're, of course, in that

situation, willing to take more risks. And again, they feel very comfortable with steroids. They have been using them for quite a while.

But I don't think this was a steroid that was used for any one particular situation beforehand. It's sort of in the hospital pharmacy being used for

a variety of things.

GORANI: Got it. Thanks very much, Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent, with that development.

[10:20:00]

GORANI: Now a key model predicts that the U.S. could see more than 200,000 deaths from COVID by October as states continue to reopen. Right now, there

are more than 2 million people infected with the virus nationwide. More than 116,000 people have died. Adding to the bleak outlook, cases are on

the rise in a number of states, as experts expect a second wave of the outbreak. Nick Watt has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's a lot of unmasked merriment in St. Mark's Place, Manhattan, over the weekend. The

governor re-tweeted this video with the warning, "Don't make me come down there."

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): If they don't enforce compliance, you will see the numbers start to go up. And if the numbers start to go up, you're going

to have to see that area take a step back.

WATT (voice-over): Mayors down in the Sunshine State also worried about scofflaws in our newfangled normal.

MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R-FL), MIAMI: That could mean a potential restriction. That could mean reversing some of the things that we've done.

WATT: May 4th, the day Florida began to reopen, they reported 819 new cases. This past Saturday, a new record high, 2,581.

CUOMO: You are seeing all across the nation, the virus actually increasing.

WATT: The new case counts climbing in 18 states across much of the West. California seeing more than 3,000 new infections a day. Also the South.

Multiple Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans players have now tested positive according to the NFL network.

And a record number of COVID-19 patients are now hospitalized across Texas.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, we're seeing that the spread is just too much for us to get a grip on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have reopening that's occurred started with the state May 1st. In addition to that, you had events like graduations and

obviously people getting together in all sorts of other activities. So each of those layer on top of another, Mother's Day, Memorial Day weekend.

WATSON (voice-over): And Saturday night, thousands will gather in neighboring Oklahoma to listen to the most famous non-masked wearer in the

country, president Donald Trump.

"COVID is here in Tulsa, it's transmitting very efficiently," says the director of the local health department. "I wish we could postpone this."

Confirmed cases in the county just climbed 30 percent in a week, blamed by the health department on large indoor gatherings.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: People should be wearing masks to the Trump rally in Tulsa this Saturday?

LARRY KUDLOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: Well, OK. Probably so.

WATSON (voice-over): And will probably be wearing them a while.

"I would hope to get back to some degree of real normality within a year or so," Dr. Anthony Fauci just told a British newspaper, "but I don't think

it's this winter or fall."

WATT: And remember hydroxychloroquine, the antimalaria drug much hyped by the president, in fact the drug he said he was taking for a couple of weeks

to fend off the virus?

Well, the FDA has now just removed the emergency authorization. Doctors can no longer use it to treat COVID-19 patients. The FDA says that studies

suggested that it probably wasn't going to do any good. In fact, some studies suggest it might even cause some serious side effects.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Nick Watt reporting. Thanks for that.

Now China is trying to put an end to a recent uptick in coronavirus cases in Beijing. Nearly 30 neighborhoods are under a lockdown after a new

cluster of more than 100 coronavirus cases emerged from a wholesale food market this weekend. Ivan Watson joins us live from Hong Kong.

This has got to be a concern because it appears as though they cannot trace this uptick or this new wave of infections from an international traveler,

that this may have happened organically.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's, I think, one of the real concerns here, is that this is local transmission in a five day

period. More than 100 cases detected.

And in a city that had been spared the just enormous wave of infections that we first saw detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December and

then explode in January and February and March.

And most of these new cases have been traced back to one key, sprawling market in the south of the Chinese capital.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON (voice-over): They're throwing away food in they're throwing away food in Beijing's largest market, a purge triggered by a new outbreak of

coronavirus in the Chinese capital.

Since last Friday, authorities say they have detected scores of new, locally transmitted cases. Most of the new infections trace back to this

place, the Xinfadi market in the south of Beijing.

[10:25:00]

WATSON (voice-over): This sprawling wholesale hub distributes more than 80 percent of the fresh produce that feeds this massive city. The market's now

closed due to coronavirus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): These coronavirus cases have perhaps come in contact with a polluted environment in the market or have

come into contact with someone who was infected who then passed on the virus to them. So they had it. For this reason, shutting down Xinfadi

agricultural trade market is necessary.

WATSON (voice-over): Less than two weeks ago, Beijing was easing coronavirus alert levels. But now officials enforce a strict lockdown on

residential compounds around the market. They have launched a huge coronavirus testing spree.

Beijing authorities say they have collected tens of thousands of samples in a matter of days and announced plans to contact trace an estimated 200,000

people estimated to have visited the market in the last two weeks.

The Chinese government clearly doesn't want a repeat of what happened last winter. This new virus exploded in the city of Wuhan and then spread like

wildfire around the world.

"There's no way Beijing becomes Wuhan 2.0," the editor-in-chief of one party-controlled tabloid wrote.

"The world will see China's powerful capacity in controlling the epidemic," he added. "We will win again."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: Now the Chinese authorities are in a race, Hala. They're trying to nip this latest cluster in the bud before it spreads any further. But at

this rate, the cases have spread to at least three other Chinese provinces and the authorities are incrementally closing down more and more

residential neighborhoods.

But there is that lingering question that you mentioned. Nobody has been able to answer that question -- how did the coronavirus get to this market

in the first place? -- Hala.

GORANI: Yes. Thank you very much for that, Nick Watson in Hong Kong.

After 24 continuous days of no new coronavirus infections, New Zealand has confirmed two new cases though they were able to trace them and determine

how they came about.

Both are women from the same family, arriving from the U.K. They were allowed to leave an isolation hotel on compassionate grounds to visit a

dying relative. Neither used public transportation for their trip.

Local officials have isolated another family member and are now contacting anyone else who may have been exposed. So here they have an ability to

trace back to all -- all the way back to the origin of this infection.

I want to show you some pictures of a protest in Paris that is apparently descending into some -- into a bit of chaos in some parts of it. This is a

health care worker protest, they're staging a nationwide day of rallies, calling on officials to improve wages and invest in public hospitals.

There are some reports it's about more sort of radical extreme elements from the Gilets Jaune, the Yellow Vests, in an advance demonstration

causing a lot of the issues. You can see there from the footage that law enforcement is using tear gas canisters to try to disperse some of that

crowd there.

But a bit chaotic in some parts of the demonstration. These are live images coming to us from the French capital. We'll have more on what's going on in

Paris a little bit later.

British authors are among hundreds speaking out about racial inequality in their country. An award winning author Bernardine Evaristo will join us

after the break.

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GORANI: Best selling British author Bernardine Evaristo says the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is also shining a spotlight on

racism in the U.K. She's the winner of the Booker Prize, the first woman of color to top the U.K. fiction paperback charts for, "Girl, Woman, Other,"

for which she won the Booker, and she has been active for years in pushing the publishing industry to be more diverse.

Thanks so much for being with us. It's a real pleasure to speak to you. My local bookstore, by the way, has sold out of your book. They have reordered

another batch. When I called to ask if they had it on the bookshelves, they said, no, it's flying off the shelves.

And because the Black Lives Matter protesters are shining a new light on racial inequality -- and I read that you were surprised to hear that a

woman of color had never topped the U.K. best sellers' fiction charts.

BERNARDINE EVARISTO, BRITISH AUTHOR: That's right. So I topped the chart - - I'm currently at the top of the charts. So it's interesting because sometimes we think that we have sort of reached these milestones. And then

we discover that we haven't.

So the only black woman to top the book sales for this country overall, it was Michelle Obama last year. And before then, nobody else had. So I think

that's kind of an indictment on the publishing industry really, because so few of us are getting published over here.

GORANI: Yes. Do you think things are changing now?

EVARISTO: I think it's better today than it was 40 years ago when I started, you know, writing and coming of age in the 1980s. But I still

think we have a really long way to go.

If you look at the publishing industry, it is an extremely white industry, top-down. And there are hardly any commissioning editors of color or anyone

else of color working in most of the publishing houses, apart from the publishing houses that are run by black people, the smaller ones.

So I think if you look at that and then you look at the -- if you look at the statistics in terms of how many writers of color are published in the

U.K., I don't have those statistics at hand, but it's a tiny, tiny percentage.

There's a major poetry publisher in the U.K. who have been around for 91 years. They have never published a black woman and they've only published

one woman of color and only four men of color. So I think that tells you what the situation is like here.

GORANI: But you say things are better now than they were 40 years ago. I mean, you could argue they're better now than they were 40 days ago even.

And one of the things you tweeted about is that when you -- you shared the Booker Prize obviously with Margaret Atwood and a BBC presenter. And the

BBC has apologized for this, mention the Booker prize and how it was shared between two authors.

And they said the Booker prize was given to Margaret Atwood and another author, without even naming you.

And you tweeted about that, saying, "Here you go, they've already erased me from Britain's literary history."

EVARISTO: I know. I mean, you know, he clearly had a memory lapse or he hadn't registered my name. But it did feel like an act of erasure. And

that's something we deal with every day in this country because black people have been in Britain since the Roman period.

That's a fact, right?

[10:35:00]

EVARISTO: Certainly the presence has been extremely well recorded since the -- sort of the 1500s onwards.

So very few people in this country know about that. So it just felt like I had been made -- you know, I had reached this level of prominence and then

I had been made invisible within a few weeks of winning, you know, this massive prize. So yes.

GORANI: Yes. And you're calling on publishing houses to change through the newly created Black Writers Guild. OK, so once we have -- we are -- I think

the level of awareness is clearly higher, your book is selling out. People are also in the nonfiction category reading about race relations.

Practically, how do you change what authors of publishing houses decide to carry or publish?

How do you start doing that?

EVARISTO: Well, you know, I think the first thing is that the publishers know what to do. They just don't do it. There have been so many reports on

more inclusivity in publishing, more diversity in publishing that go back to 2004.

In fact, I was behind one report into poetry. So the publishers do know what to do. They need to integrate. They need to integrate at every level

and have people in the publishing houses who understand that Britain is a diverse nation, that there is definitely an economic argument and all other

kinds of cultural arguments for the publishing houses to produce literature from and about those communities.

And those books would actually be for everybody because literature is for everybody. That's what they need to do. In one sense it's very simple. But

I think publishing is a very traditional business. People don't move around that much and, traditionally, it has been an industry that's been dominated

by Oxbridge, people who went to Oxford or Cambridge.

Even that's not quite the case today, that's what it has been historically. So they need to bring us in. And sometimes one -- one has to deal with

unconscious bias.

GORANI: And --

EVARISTO: When that happens.

GORANI: Our producer asked you for -- sorry for the overlap there. Just a few technical delays here with the audio.

Our producer asked you for a list of books that you would recommend for our viewers, that you believe would be eye-opening books for anybody wishing to

kind of read literature and fiction written by people of color.

"Brit (ish)" by Afua Hirsch; "Don't Touch My Hair," "Sensuous Knowledge," "Rainbow Milk," "Afropean."

If you could recommend one of these five for us for someone to start on, which would it be and why?

EVARISTO: I think it would be "Brit(ish)" by Afua Hirsch because it's very much a book about being black and British. It's about identity and race and

belonging. You know, Afua Hirsch is a very well known journalist and writer in the U.K. She's a mixed race woman. She was privately educated, she went

to Oxford.

But she still has come up against so much racism and also, in the spheres in which she moves, made to feel she doesn't belong. The book is a

brilliant book. It's part sort of sociology tract, part memoir, brilliantly written and I think it would be an eye opener for Americans to read.

GORANI: Yes. And we're seeing all over the world, so thank you so much for the recommendations and we'll definitely make sure that that list makes it

to our viewers after the program.

You won the Booker prize, you have also won, in my book, the best -- the award for the best backdrop, the best COVID lockdown Skype background. It

is absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us.

EVARISTO: Thank you.

GORANI: I have ordered your book from the local bookstore. I couldn't get my hands on it today. But it will arrive in the next few days.

The Booker prize winner and author of, "Girl, Woman, Other."

Ahead on this show, North Korea has blown up a building used for peace talks with the South. What Seoul says it's going to do about it.

Plus, the growing tensions in the Himalayas, the Indian army says three of its soldiers were killed during a face-off with Chinese troops. Increased

tension there. We'll bring you the very latest.

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GORANI: South Korea calls North Korea's decision to blow up a joint liaison office "unprecedented." North Korean state media announced the

four-story building, was used for talks with the South, had been completely destroyed.

This is the view of the smoke rising just north of the DMZ, the demilitarized zone. Seoul says Pyongyang has, quote, "reneged on everyone's

desire for peace."

Let's bring in Will Ripley.

Why is the North doing this now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's certainly a very creative way to get the attention of South Korea and the United States.

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RIPLEY: If they don't want to cross the red line of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile because they're trying to get the

attention of Washington, they want to let Washington and South Korea know that they're unhappy with the fact that more than two years of diplomacy

has gotten them absolutely nothing, in their view, other than publicity. Certainly all the sanctions remain in place. Their economy is suffering.

And, you know, I guess what was the, you know, the icing on the cake for the North Koreans was the activists in South Korea sending up balloons and

dropping down propaganda leaflets on North Korean border villages. They decided they need to take action but can't cross that red line that's

going to anger President Trump.

So what do they do?

They blow up the office that they shared up until January when the pandemic kind of shut everything down. You know, they shared this office on North

Korean soil with South Koreans. They both had separate floors and then there were meeting rooms where they could come together.

It was supposed to facilitate communication, usher in this new era of peace and what we now have, after that diplomacy and all that hard work is

essentially a pile of rubble and all of that diplomacy up in smoke, which is North Korea kind of putting a physical symbol on what we have known for

a long time, that all of the photo-ops and all of the moments have essentially led us back to, you know, where we were before 2018, with

tensions rising once again on the Korean Peninsula.

GORANI: All right. Well, one more flashpoint in the world to add to the list.

Tensions are growing between China and India over a border dispute in the Himalayas. The Indian army says its senior military officials are meeting

with their Chinese counterparts after three of its soldiers were killed during what India calls a violent face-off with Chinese troops.

It happened in this disputed area, where there have been reports of a military build-up for weeks. The Indian army said there were casualties on

the Chinese side as well. Sam Kiley joins us now to kind of break down this story for us.

It's not often that you hear that this type of conflict results in deaths and such a serious development.

What happened and what has China's reaction been?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala, this relates to a -- what they call the line of actual control. It separates

China from India along a 3,500 kilometer stretch of territory. Like so many of these lines of control elsewhere in the world, it involves a border

dispute.

On that border, over the last couple of months in particular, there have been rising tensions as each side has accused the other of trying to seize

ground, patrolling into each other's acknowledged space, crossing the line effectively.

And two nights ago, the Chinese say the Indians conducted an incursion into what they call their territory. And there was some kind of physical fight

between these two groups of soldiers. Chinese and the Indians.

Interestingly, very significantly they did not involve firearms but on the Indian side a colonel and two other ranked soldiers were killed. The Indian

officials have been saying they were killed with what they're calling batons, clubs or rocks in what is clearly a violent physical altercation.

The Indians have said that the Chinese have suffered casualties on their side and the Chinese officials, out of the ministry of foreign affairs,

have called on India to back off in their view, that this is all entirely provoked by the Indians.

There's no evidence of that, of course. We don't know who started it. But the issue is, as far as the Chinese are concerned, they want to get back to

talks to try to de-escalate what has been going on in this very long, high- altitude border area between the two countries.

Of course, Hala, they're both nuclear powers now. Back in '75 they had violent clashes; very, very violent clashes 50 years ago or so in the '60s.

And those two countries were much smaller in terms of their potential power in global influence back then.

And nowadays both of the countries are powerful global players economically and nuclear powers -- Hala.

GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Sam Kiley.

Just ahead the Premier League is back this week. It is the clearest sign yet that sports is returning to some kind of normal.

What can we expect from the world's biggest football league?

Well, we'll try to answer that question, next.

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GORANI: Well, big news in the world of sport. The Premier League kicks off again on Wednesday after many weeks of lockdown. Don Riddell is a happy

man, I'm sure. He's here with us to discuss what we can expect.

Hi, Don.

DON RIDDELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Hala, good to see you. I think we'll see a variety of narratives play out and not all of them are football

related. The most compelling on the pitch is Liverpool's 30-year quest for a domestic title, which is surely almost over. Remember the Reds had raced

into the extraordinary 25-point lead before the lockdown and now they're just two wins away from clinching the title. They might do it at Everton.

Of course, there won't be any fans in the stadium and TV viewers at home are expected to opt to listen to specially engineered fake crowd noise to

make the broadcast more palatable. But there's so much more excitement at the league's return. Something that wasn't guaranteed. Remember, the

French, Dutch and Scottish leagues never came back.

But the success of the Bundesliga in Germany last months showed what was possible and action has since resumed as well at Spain and Italy. In all

three countries, we have also already seen players demonstrably put their weight behind the racial awakening movement and you will certainly see more

examples of that in the Premier League.

This week, every player will have the words "Black Lives Matter" on the back of their shirts instead of their names.

"WORLD SPORT" contributor Darren Lewis will be covering the Premier League's return this week and he joins us now from London.

Great to see you again, mate. This will have been a massive logistical challenge.

What has the Premier League had to do to be sure to play again and can get this season finished?

LEWIS: They have to convince the players that it's safe to return. Let's not kid ourselves; the clubs are well aware that, to complete the season,

they need to do that because the billion dollar contracts have been signed, with the broadcasters -- are predicated on finishing the season.

So if they don't manage to do that, then they've got big problems. What they have had to do is work very hard to ensure that the Premier League

stadiums are biosecure. They have effectively created a bubble around all of the grounds.

The game I'm covering, I will have to go through a special entrance. I'll have to make sure that I get my temperature taken. There will be lots and

lots of different measures, far too many to outline here in this bulletin for me and players and staff to undergo when we cover matches.

But they're very confident that having agreed on those protocols that football can take place as other sports have already.

RIDDELL: So much interest in Liverpool who are running away with this 100 days ago. But what has the extended break done to them and other players

and teams --

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RIDDELL: -- will they be as good as they have been this season?

LEWIS: That's a good question, because we're all saying that the clubs are glad to be going back. But we are people and what this period has shown us

is that there's more to life than work and sport, whatever we do, when we close our front doors and go off to the office.

We don't know psychologically what impact the last three months have had on individual players. The hunger obviously will be there, the quality quite

clearly will still be there.

But how will it be out there?

Will they be happy going back, when people are still sick or dying because of the coronavirus?

We don't know. That's why this first couple of match days will be key to see what kind of impact is made by the last three months.

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RIDDELL: Darren, I know before all this started, you had been speaking to a lot of players at length about racial awakening, social injustice and, of

course, since then, everything has changed all around the world and we have seen other players in other countries, like Marcelo in Spain respond so

demonstrably to the Black Lives Matter movement.

How do you think the players are all feeling about what is happening right now?

LEWIS: I think you used some very keen language there, the world has changed since we last saw a game of Premier League football. The action on

the pitch has been put very much into perspective by the deaths from coronavirus. And we have had the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the

killing of George Floyd.

The industries and the media and sporting bodies throughout the U.K. must own up to the fact that black men are not represented in decision making

positions. We have had the Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford upstaging the Premier League with his success in ensuring around 1.3

million children here in the U.K. will not go hungry during the summer.

He has been on social media in the last few minutes, in fact. He had been answering a cry for help from vulnerable families rather than trying to

play politics. I can't remember another footballer, Don, who's successfully changed government policy with his activism.

I don't know if -- I don't know you have insight (INAUDIBLE), I'm sure you can put me right but Rashford, with the impact that he's made today on

government policy, we have seen in this last three months a lot of things that have put football very firmly into perspective.

RIDDELL: Yes, he's just 22 years old but a very old and wise head on those young shoulders. It is great to be back, Darren, and, of course, so much

more than just because of the football. I think the next few weeks will be fascinating for more reasons than one.

Darren Lewis, thank you for your contribution today.

Hala, that's it from us. Looking forward to the Premier League starting again on Wednesday.

GORANI: All right. Don, thanks very much, we'll see you soon.

We have a lot more news after the break.

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