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Manchester Police: Suspected Bomb A Training Device; ISIS Assaults Gas Plant Near Baghdad; McGurk: Coalition Is Countering ISIS On Social Media; Trump: Britain Won't Be "Back Of The Queue" In Trade; Trump Not Considering Rubio As Running Mate; Trump Calls Clinton "Enabler" Of Her Husband; Arrest in Bangladesh Machete Attack; Bangladesh Hit Hard by Storms, Lightening; Chinese Girl Band Faces Backlash over Cultural Revolution Songs; Woman Escapes Modern-Day Slavery in Japan; Ukraine's Eurovision Win Sparks Backlash. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired May 16, 2016 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM. Live from Los Angeles, ahead this hour --
(HEADLINES)
VAUSE: Thanks for being with us. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
Manchester United Football Club was at the center of a bomb scare on Sunday. Police evacuated the home stadium, but it later turned out to be a false alarm. The suspected explosive device was accidentally left behind by a private company after a training exercise. Christina Macfarlane reports now from Manchester.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fans arrived here at Old Trafford on Sunday expecting to see drama on the pitch with Manchester United took on Bournemouth in the final fixture of the season. But instead they were disrupted by events off it, after a suspicious package was found in the northwest corner of the stands.
After 75,000 fans were evacuated from the stadium here and sent home, a bomb disposal team was sent in to conduct a controlled explosion of the device, which is said to have been very life-like.
But later on Sunday night, it was confirmed that the package was in fact a training device, which was left behind by a private firm following a training drill.
While this isn't an ideal situation for Man United Football Club, there is a great deal of relief that the situation wasn't as dangerous as first suspected and there is reassurance that the fans and the security staff here dealt efficiently and swiftly to the incident.
The premier league have announced that the match that was due to take place here today have now been rescheduled for Tuesday, the 17th, where it will draw a close to the premier league season. Christina Macfarlane, CNN, Manchester.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Retired special FBI agent and CNN law enforcement contributor, Steve Moore joins us now to talk more about exactly what happened, and what didn't happen at Old Trafford on Sunday.
I mean, we've had these reports that after the Paris terrorist attacks, and their attempt to detonate an explosive at a football stadium, given that, how surprising is that this device was left there on a Wednesday and not found until a Sunday?
STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: It is astounding. And it is not in keeping with any kind of elevated security or even mildly elevated security. Before you go to the extent of having a playoff game, you are going to have the entire stadium walked, looked at, and you're going to probably run dogs through it. So that should have been found about two or three times before the event.
VAUSE: OK, like in the days before, the morning of?
MOORE: At the latest the morning of.
VAUSE: OK, so you had the situation where they had this training exercise and apparently had people rappelling out of helicopters, a big training exercise. Wouldn't someone have informed the local authorities in Manchester, hey, hang on, we have this going on. We had a training exercise there on Wednesday.
MOORE: You would think that, but they said it was a private company. Maybe it wasn't as --
VAUSE: Elaborate, I guess.
MOORE: Yes, as elaborate as you thought, but what gets me is the Old Trafford people, they had to allow this training to happen, so why didn't anybody at Old Trafford say, Wednesday, I'm astounded.
VAUSE: OK. The situation that they say this fake bomb seemed to be incredibly realistic. It was a cell phone strapped to pipes that sort of bomb if it was a bomb, not a timer, remotely detonated.
MOORE: Right.
VAUSE: So assuming this was a real world situation, they found this bomb and you have a situation with 75,000 fans now putting on the posting on social media, sending out tweets, the stadium is being evacuated. There is a security scare we got to go, would the police, the authorities have this 90-minute long period to basically disarm this bomb, which is what they had, at 3:00, it wasn't exploded until 4:30.
MOORE: If a terrorist is going to take the time to put a cell phone detonator on it, as soon as they get indication that the bomb might be disrupted, they're going to be probably detonate it. They wouldn't have had 90 minutes.
VAUSE: So given that, evacuate the stadium, everyone agrees it is the right thing to do, what else can you do? Any other option here?
MOORE: The time -- if this was a real bomb, by the time it is right there, if it is a remotely detonated device, your time is over the minute you find it because somebody will be watching that bomb, even if they're not going to be the ones who call to detonate, they're going to be in touch with the people who will.
[01:05:08]You don't put a -- a remotely detonated bomb in a stadium and not watch it.
VAUSE: OK, so essentially what we're saying is that they would have had a lot less than that 90-minute window.
MOORE: They would have it about a minute after somebody said, look.
VAUSE: Yes, exactly, OK. So we have a situation with increased security. There's obviously been attacks in Paris, attacks in Brussels, are we now in a situation where somebody, if they wanted, this wasn't the case here, but let's say they could build a realistic looking fake bomb and essentially disrupt the lives of 75,000 people like what happened here in Manchester.
MOORE: That's how terrorism works. They make our lives worse this way. They make it to where people are so on edge that anything like this, it doesn't even have to be that realistic. People are getting thrown off planes for speaking different languages. So yes, this is now the world we live in.
VAUSE: The new reality.
MOORE: It is.
VAUSE: Steve, thanks for coming in.
MOORE: Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
VAUSE: A series of attacks by ISIS have killed dozens of people in Yemen and Iraq. Yemeni security officials say a suicide bomber struck a southern military base on Sunday.
The blast killed at least 30 troops and left 29 others wounded. An hour later, another suicide blast targeted the convoy of a Yemeni security official killing two of his guards and injuring four others.
And in Iraq, a car bomb struck just south of Baghdad on Sunday killing at least two people, wounding almost a dozen more. There was violence also which erupted just north of the Iraqi capital on Sunday when ISIS militants attacked a natural gas plant killing at least ten security personnel.
The deadly assaults sent plumes of smoke into the air and left several storage tanks ablaze. Ian Lee has more on the attack.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fireballs lit up the early morning sky north of Baghdad after ISIS launched a deadly attack at a gas plant. Two attack helicopters from a nearby base helped repel the attack more than ten guards were killed.
This attack sparked harsh criticism from Baghdad's governor, Ali al- Tamimi (ph), he slammed the chief of the plant for failing to provide adequate protection.
He pointed to the inappropriate number of guards and their light weaponry, no match compared with ISIS' firepower and tactics. He called for an overhaul of the plant security to protect the facility, which is important economically for the services it provides and geographical location.
The plant is north of the capital, along the road that leads to the ISIS stronghold of Mosul. Another failure of the attack, was the delayed response by Iraqi security forces especially forces.
The governor called for security leaders to be replaced after it took the forces two and a half hours to respond. This latest attack underscores two important points.
First a change in ISIS tactics, while the terror group faces battlefield losses over the past few weeks, sleeper cells have increased the number of attacks in territory controlled by Iraqi security forces.
Second, highlights the failure of security forces to root out is in that area. Ian Lee, CNN, Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: More on the surge of ISIS attacks joined by CNN military analyst, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Colonel Francona, thanks for being with us. As ISIS moves to this sort of insurgent like attacks, very good question, are the Iraqis capable of adapting to that?
Because up to this point, it sort of been more conventional war if they were the frontline. Now they have to adapt to these tactics, these changing tactics, are they up to the job?
LT. COLONEL RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, they have done it in the past. The problem, John, is that they're spread very thin. If you look at Iraqi Army collapsed, two years ago, when Mosul fell to ISIS, and it is never really recovered, we're starting to get there, but it is not there yet.
So you got the Iraqi security forces, which includes the police, Special Forces and the Army. And there is just not enough of them to handle all of what they're trying to do. They are trying to fight in the Euphrates Valley and cut the supply lines there.
They are trying to get ready to push up the Tigris Valley toward Mosul and also provide security to this large area around Baghdad and they're just stretched so thin. So as they concentrated one area, ISIS nearly attacks another.
It's just typical asymmetric warfare. ISIS is very good at. They are reverting to the old tactics that worked for them before. I think we're going to see more of this. Ian brought up a very good point.
This is causing a lot of problems for the government because the Shia population of Baghdad is complaining that you cannot protect us and they're more concerned with their own safety than the liberation of Mosul.
VAUSE: Do you think there should be now a reassessment there by officials in Baghdad to secure the capital than more about everything else later on?
FRANCONA: That's the goal. That's what ISIS would like to have them do. ISIS would like to have them pulled back, reassess what is going on and say, you know, maybe we don't need to go to Mosul just yet. Maybe go to Mosul at all because the Iraqi government has its own problems.
[01:10:01]As you know, there have been all these demonstrations by Moktad al-Sadr (ph) and his group demanding a complete change in government, the end of corruption and the Baghdad government is very corrupt.
And they want to make these changes and ISIS would like to see them focus on that and leave them alone. I don't think that's going to work but that's the goal.
VAUSE: Well, you mentioned the amount of territory, which ISIS has lost and how the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military is trying to take back this territory from ISIS. During a briefing in Amman, Jordan, U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy, Brett McGurk (ph), he did talk about the territory which ISIS has lost in Iraq. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT MCGURK, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY FOR COALITION AGAINST ISIS: And now the caliphate as they call it, perverse caliphate, is shrinking. So they're very much on the defensive. They have not -- any territory really since their operations in Ramadi going all the way back to May.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: This is the flip side of the coin here. The Iraqi military has taken with the Iraqis with the support of the U.S. and other allies have taken back a lot of territory. What is the strain now? Are ISIS under, I guess when you look at from a propaganda point of view, financially, psychologically, that kind of stuff?
FRANCONA: They're under pressure in both countries, both the main enclave in Syria, Iraq, other self-declared capital and Mosul. The Iraqi Army with the Kurdish support and with the American air power has been able to pretty much isolate those, not quite all, but the goal is to cut these two enclaves off and surround them so that there is no escape.
Remember what happened in Afghanistan, the al Qaeda was able to escape into Pakistan. We're trying to prevent that from happening again by completely surrounding them in that way we can destroy them in place.
Otherwise, we're going to see what we're starting to see the beginnings of and that's ISIS moving to Libya, to Yemen and setting up enclaves there. So if the military plan holds, as Mr. Berger (ph) mentions, we're going to keep pushing ISIS from all sides and roll them up into these cities and eventually Mosul and Raqqah are going to have to be taken.
VAUSE: You mentioned something interesting when it came to social media and propaganda, and ISIS is being squeezed on that front as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCGURK: They had free reign in the propaganda sphere. They had millions of Twitter and Facebook pages pumping out these lies every single day. We have now worked as a coalition to counter that. For every pro -- Twitter handle, there is now six calling out its lies and countering that message. That's very important.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: How important is this part of the strategy and how will the U.S. and its allies know if it is working?
FRANCONA: Yes, I think this is one of the success stories of what we're doing. Our cyber capabilities are quite good and they've zeroed in on ISIS and they've really had an effect. You look at the recruitment numbers and that's a good metric for how effective they are.
It's down about to a third of what it's used to be so instead of 3,000 fighter showing up, we're seeing about a thousand. Of course, a lot of it also has to do with the effect of the air campaign and the ground campaign.
But we don't see as much effect of this propaganda onslaught that we saw, you know, even last year. So I think this is a success story and good thing, but it has to continue.
But it's not over yet. I don't think we're counting the death nail of ISIS just yet. There is still a lot of fight left in these guys.
VAUSE: Yes, we're seeing it every day, over and over again from Iraq to Yemen to Libya, of course, in Syria as well. Colonel, thank you.
FRANCONA: Always good to be with you.
JONES: The leading figure in the campaign for Britain to lead the European Union says the E.U. is following a doomed path by trying to create a European superstate.
Former London Mayor Boris Johnson told the "Telegraph" newspaper, Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out and it ends tragically. Adding that the E.U. lack democracy and a unifying authority.
Johnson's comments drew criticism from those who want Britain to remain in the E.U. ahead of a referendum next month. The foreign affairs spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party said this.
"After the horror of the second world war, the E.U. helped to bring an end to centuries of conflict in Europe and for Boris Johnson to make this comparison is both offensive and desperate."
Donald Trump says Britain won't be worse off in trade negotiations with the U.S. should it leave the European Union. President Barack Obama has warned Britain would move to the back of the queue in U.S. trade deals if it does in fact exit the E.U.
In an interview with (inaudible) Piers Morgan, Trump insisted it wouldn't happen if he was president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you become president, and we come out of European Union, what would your view be about where Britain should sit in priority terms with trade deals with the United States?
[01:15:05]DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think they'll be hurt at all. They have to make their own deal. Britain has been a great ally. To a point where they --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- front of the queue.
TRUMP: Britain is such a great ally that they went into things they shouldn't have gone into, like as an example going into Iraq, OK. With me, they'll always be treated fantastically well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'd be front of the queue with --
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say front or anything else. I'll treat everybody fairly. It wouldn't make any difference to me whether they were in the E.U. or not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wouldn't be back of the queue.
TRUMP: You would certainly not be back of the queue. That I can tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Donald Trump may win some British support with his Brexit position, but at home, he's facing some big challenges with women voters. Coming up, the "New York Times" has an in depth report in his past relationships with women.
Plus, the men some call the Donald Trump of the east strikes again. We'll tell you what he's saying now about capital punishment.
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KATE RILEY, CNN WORLD SPORTS ANCHOR: I'm Kate Riley with your CNN World Sport headlines. The device which caused the Manchester United- Bournemouth match to be called off on last day being this premier league season was a training device. It was left behind by a private company after a security exercise carried out last week. The match will go ahead, but on Tuesday evening in the U.K. instead.
To the tracks of Barcelona for the Spanish grand prix where it wasn't the best of days for Mercedes. Teammate (inaudible) and Luis Hamilton (ph) would both crash out leaving the race wide open and the young Max Verstappen (ph) will take full advantage.
The 18-year-old was driving for Red Bull for the very first time after he was promoted from Red Bull's junior team. It was only the second season in Formula One and now he's the youngest ever race winner after winning in Spain on Sunday.
It was a very happy birthday for Britain's Andy Murray. He celebrates this Sunday, very first victory of the Italian Open in Rome for him beating in all too familiar opponent, Novak Djokovic, playing in his first tournament said the announcement he was parting company with Coach Amelie Mauresmo (ph) and won in straight sets. That's a look at your sports headlines. I'm Kate Riley.
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JONES: Welcome back, everybody. Donald Trump is making it clear he is not considering Marco Rubio as a running mate on the U.S. Republican presidential ticket.
[01:20:00]The "Washington Post" reports Ben Carson suggested five people under consideration. Rubio was the only one named, but the "Post" also mentioned John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Christi Christie, and Sarah Palin.
Now on Twitter, Trump posted this, the "Washington Post" report on potential VP candidates is wrong. Marco Rubio and most others mentioned are not under consideration.
There has been a lot of reporting a problem with Donald Trump when it comes to the gender gap in his support. Now the "New York Times" is delving into his behavior with women in private.
The "Times" interviewed more than 50 women who worked with him, dated him or observed him socially. And the accounts revealed, quote, "unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women and unsettling workplace conduct."
For more on this, we're joined by two political strategists, our regulars here, Dave Jacobson for the Democrats, and John Thomas on the Republican side.
Let's just start with that VP thing, though. Most, would he seriously be considering Sarah Palin for a VP?
JOHN THOMAS, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: I don't think so. We saw after he rolled out his endorsement, she disappeared from the scene. I think Trump is smart enough to realize she shouldn't be on the ticket.
VAUSE: Do you want Sarah Palin on the ticket?
DAVE JACOBSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Sure, absolutely. I think it underscores the left hand is not talking to the right hand. For Ben Carson to go out there and tell the "Washington Post" that these are serious contenders for VP just shows the amount of sort of disorganization within the Trump campaign. I'll tell you something, out of that list, the most formidable candidate for VP would be John Kasich.
VAUSE: Ben Carson was actually was for a time put in charge of vetting potential VPs -- moved off, I wonder why.
THOMAS: Demoting even further it sounds like.
VAUSE: Quite possibly. Donald Trump took to Twitter because he was unhappy with that "New York Times" story, which looked into his past. As he always does, he hit back, he posted this. "Everyone is laughing at the "New York Times" for the lame hit piece they did on me and women. I gave them many names of women I helped, refused to use." As in the "New York Times" refused to talk to them.
On Sunday, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, basically said voters seemly don't care about this kind of stuff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I think that all these stories that come out and they come out every couple of weeks, people just don't care. I think people look at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and say who is going to bring an earthquake to Washington, D.C.
I think the bigger issue when we make these judgments about people are whether or not individuals are throwing stones and glass houses. When people are hypocrites, obviously that's when these stories have an impact.
I don't think Donald Trump and his personal life is something that people are looking at and saying, well, I'm surprised that he's had girlfriends in the past.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: So John, is this baked into the cake of Donald Trump's support. Everybody knows if they heard Donald Trump, they know he's dated a lot of women, a lot of beautiful women, broken up with a lot of women as well. He has a history of two failed marriage. He is on to his third. So does this kind of stuff not matter? THOMAS: It doesn't matter. The chairman is right. It doesn't matter because like the chairman said people hate a hypocrite. The fact is Donald Trump is known to get in spats especially with a lot of women. So this is part of his brand. It's cooked in.
It would be one thing if you are running as a family values candidate and this bombshell came out it would hurt him. It doesn't -- although, it underscores his problem that he'll have to moderate somewhat with women.
And if these stories keep coming out, it will hurt him. He won't win in a landslide with women, but has to make up some ground.
VAUSE: This is a question, does this kind of stuff, does this add to his negatives or do women already dislike him for other reasons?
JACOBSON: I think it's all of the above. I think, look, Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman, I think is tone deaf. That's OK. He is the mouthpiece now of the Donald Trump campaign. He has a convention to think about.
But look, the hard data shows that throughout this campaign, Donald Trump has enormous unfavorables with women. According to a CNN poll, 61 percent of women voters would side with Hillary Clinton, 35 percent for Donald Trump.
Nationwide, he's got a 70 percent unfavorable rating with women. This is going to be a significant challenge for him moving forward towards November.
VAUSE: OK, talking about Hillary Clinton now, Reince Priebus, won't care about Hillary Clinton's past scandals. I guess, that would be a reference to Bill Clinton and his past indiscretions.
Today, on Sunday, Hillary Clinton laid out that the job that Bill Clinton would have should she get elected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My husband, who I'm going to put in charge of revitalizing the economy because, you know, he knows how to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK, so she's bringing Bill Clinton on board. Is there a danger that there is not an equal playing field when it comes to previous scandals? Bill Clinton's scandals happened in the oval office. And so they can be brought up, but maybe Donald Trump's previous scandals, some people don't care about.
JACOBSON: I think it is all fair game at this point. I mean, we saw months ago Donald Trump brought up some of the Clinton scandals and the gloves have come off, you're sort of seeing the sharpened attacks, pivoting to a general election. [01:25:02]Look, there is no doubt that Bill Clinton has some liabilities. I think his assets in terms of his successful presidency, largest economic expansion in American history during his presidency in the 90s, I think those assets are going to outweigh the liabilities.
THOMAS: Well, it is not quite that cut and dry because the Clinton campaign had no choice but to put in Bill Clinton. That's because on all the issues of character, who you want to have a beer with, Hillary Clinton today beats Donald Trump except for one issue, the economy.
They don't think she's better equipped and Bill Clinton does have a better track record on the economy than his wife. But hugging Bill Clinton so closely does bring into the question of what happened in Bill's past and what role did Hillary have in it.
VAUSE: Because it's interesting because when Donald Trump went after Bill Clinton, back in January, because they got into the whole sexism thing. Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump sexist because of some bathroom comments he made about her in the debate, juvenile and extreme.
But he then brought up all the scandals of the '90s. Look what happened to Bill Clinton's approval numbers, look at this. His favorable numbers dropped 11 points. It went down from 50 down to 39.
And for Bill Clinton, I guess who is not running for election, but he's worried about his legacy, his reputation, he looks at these numbers every day this is his life now.
And if he sees his numbers going down because he's been draped into the campaign, attacked by Donald Trump, does he then sort of go rogue? Is he not sort of -- is he out of control for the Hillary Clinton campaign?
THOMAS: Well, he was out of control in 2008. He had those problems, absolutely right, furthermore, it underscores the power that Donald Trump has to drive up someone's negatives. He's hardly attacking Bill Clinton. Imagine he focuses on Hillary Clinton. This is a real problem.
JACOBSON: OK, I think it's a double edged sword. The reality is when Trump brought these issues months ago in the campaign, they didn't really allow Bill Clinton to serve as the attack dog and to sort of stand up for himself, right.
They sort of took him off the campaign trail for a couple of days, waited for the issue to go away and brought him back to talk about issues and substance.
I think now that we're pivoting over to the general election, you're going to see the gloves come off, you see a much more combative natured Bill Clinton and you're also going to have a tag team partner with Barack Obama also going against Donald Trump.
THOMAS: It is hard if you're Bill Clinton to attack on the women's issue because you live in a glass house.
VAUSE: And that's what Priebus was saying, when it comes to the element of hypocrisy, that's when it gets tricky. We didn't get to the Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas comment, we did that last hour. Thanks for coming in, guys. Appreciate it.
A short break here, when we come back an arrest made in the murders of two gay rights activists in Bangladesh. We'll tell you what police are saying about the suspect in just a moment.
Also ahead, a Chinese girl band is reviving the spirit of the cultural revolution with a patriotic performance, but for some, it's only resurrecting painful memories. That story also ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:31:07] VAUSE: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
The headlines this hour --
(HEADLINES)
VAUSE: Police in Bangladesh made an arrest in last month's brutal hacking deaths of two of gay rights activists. The killings are among a string of hacking murders in Bangladesh recently.
For more on this, let's go to Alexandria Field live in Hong Kong. She has just recently returned from Bangladesh.
Alexandra, what do we know about the suspect and how was he arrested?
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, for weeks, police had been looking for five or six different suspects who they believe were all involved in the killings, the slaughtering of these two LGBT activists. They arrested one man, a 37-year-old. They say he's part of a home-grown Islamist militant group called Anser al Abangla (ph). We have spoken to terrorism analysts and experts in the region who say this group has ties to al Qaeda. There was a Bangladeshi chapter of al Qaeda which claimed responsibility for the killings after the men were found hacked to death in an apartment in Bangladesh's capitol city of Dhaka. These are two men who had been threatened before. They were prominent members of the LGBT community. One was a publisher of the country's first LGBT magazine, called Groupon (ph). This was certainly a position in which he was pushing boundaries. And he had been threatened before. But this was really a brutal killing, which these two men were killed inside that apartment building that you're looking at right now. Five or six different men were posing as couriers when they burst into the building. While they used machetes in the attacks, police also say there were firearms left behind and one of those guns was traced back to the suspect who they have taken into custody -- John?
VAUSE: OK. Alexandra, thank you very much. Alexandria Field in Hong Kong with the latest on that arrest for the murder of the two gay rights activists. We'll stay in Bangladesh now. It has been hit hard by severe
thunderstorms this past week. There's also been an astonishing rise in the number of people killed by lightning strikes.
Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri joins us with more on that.
Pedram, some of these numbers of deaths, it's quite astounding.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is. We think it's dozens of fatalities across the region, in the couple of days. You think about what occurred here, reports suggesting there are a lot of people in open areas, open fields, many students, many children, and the vast majority being farmers across the northern portion of the Dhaka district in Bangladesh. The lightning fatalities across this region and lightning strikes in general are common this time of year as we approach the warm season, the thunderstorm season. We know numbers suggest upwards of almost 100 of fatalities occurred in the last several months, going back to the beginning of March, many in open fields and open spaces. Look at the numbers, for balanced ecology, 25 percent of the land covered by forest. That number depleted to 6 percent. Not going to have much in the way of forest left, over the next several years, if this trend continues. You remove the forest, become the largest, tallest object in an open area that increases the likelihood of being struck. Look at this number. That's the population in Bangladesh. 157 million people, the country, the size of the country itself, roughly comparable to the size of an average U.S. state. Take the state of Georgia. That's the size of the state. But, of course, that's half the U.S. population being placed in a small area of land, so now exposing a lot of people, a high population density. The odds of being struck are quite small when you look at the entire lifetime, one in 12,000. If you live in southern California, your odds are far lower. You live next to me in the state of Georgia and the United States, your odds are higher. That number could be skewed. Take that into Bangladesh, but 90 percent of the lightning strikes of the victims survived, and we see the number in the United States only at 5 so far in 2016, which is actually the most this early in the season -- John?
[01:36:39] VAUSE: OK. So interesting numbers there.
Thank you, Pedram.
JAVAHERI: Absolutely.
VAUSE: A Chinese girl band is facing a backlash over songs that resurrect the imagery and feeling of the Cultural Revolution.
As Matt Rivers reports, for some, those patriotic songs recall a time of chaos and bloodshed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SINGING)
MATT RIVERS, CNN ASIA-PACIFIC EDITOR (voice-over): Teenage girls belting out a song worshipping Mao Zedong. (SINGING)
RIVERS: Sounds a lot like it did 50 years ago this week, when the chairman launched the Cultural Revolution, ushering in a tumultuous decade, when showing allegiance to the Communist Party meant singing it out loud.
(SINGING)
RIVERS: On this military base outside Beijing, these young performers called the 56 Flowers practiced old songs about now, and new ones about President Xi Jinping.
(SINGING)
RIVERS: The effect in the room is a distinct air of loyalty to party leaders, past and present.
Chen Wong, the manager, says the goal is to put on concerts promoting Socialists, traditional values among the youth of today.
(on camera): Most girls are from poor families in far flung provinces. This opportunity is one of the few they'll ever get to travel outside of where they're from. They get free meals, free lodging, and get paid 450 U.S. dollars a month. That money usually gets sent back home.
(voice-over): But more than selling tickets or making money, their shows are meant to rekindle that revolutionary spirit. At this show in the Great Hall of the People, the symbolic theater off the square, a banner flashed behind the singers reading "Defeat the American invaders and their running dogs." Some in the audience applauded, but the performance was roundly criticized online because it harkened back to the darkest period of Mao's rule.
His Cultural Revolution was meant to rid the country of all things capitalist, but hundreds of thousands died in the ensuing violence and chaos. Officially, the party has long denounced the Cultural Revolution. But critics say President Xi has taken a page from Mao's playbook, consolidating power and demanding total party control over society.
But even in Xi's China, promoting the Cultural Revolution with elaborate stage shows is a step too far. So the 56 Flowers group took down its website and social media accounts. For now, the music has stopped.
(MUSIC)
RIVERS: Matt Rivers, CNN, Beijing.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[01:39:14] VAUSE: We'll take a short break. When we come back, a woman who dreamed of fame and fortune as a model in Japan faced a very different reality when she got there. How she escaped human trafficking. And the record she recently set to raise awareness.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: The CNN Freedom Project is dedicated to shining a light on human trafficking and ending modern day slavery. Norma Bastidas thought she was going to Japan for a modeling job. Instead, she became someone's property. She struggled to cope with the trauma after she gained her freedom.
CNN's Kyung Lah reports she's took up running to recover and that led her to remarkable achievements.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The miles don't matter to Norma Bastidas. They gather and pool like the rain she pushes through, the tears she so often shed.
NORMA BASTIDAS, ESCAPED MODERN-DAY SLAVERY: I have broken records, but there is a part of me that not a lot of people knew, that I was a survivor of sexual violence and human trafficking.
LAH: Born to a desperately poor family in Mexico, Norma's father died when she was 11. So when a friend told her about a modeling job in Japan, she says she saw it as her big break in a lifetime of dark clouds.
BASTIDAS: I remember my mother saying, I'm afraid, but I can't stop you because this is the only chance. We all want it to be true.
LAH: It wasn't. Bastidas said the agency delivered her to a members club who told her she must repay all the money it took to bring her to Japan as an escort.
BASTIDAS: You cannot go to the police. And I cannot go home until I pay my debt.
LAH: And that left her, she says, vulnerable to all kinds of abuse.
BASTIDAS: I was drugged on my way home from the club, dragged, beaten. Nobody wanted to help me because I had been a bar girl so I had no value.
LAH: After several years, Bastidas managed to pay off her debt and leave. She later married, moved to Canada, and had two children. For years Bastidas said she numbed the pain by drinking, but she realized if she was going to do more than survive with her children, she would need to thrive.
BASTIDAS: So I started running. I didn't want them to hear me crying at night.
LAH: Six months later, to everyone's astonishment, she qualified for one of the world's most prestigious race events, the Boston Marathon. BASTIDAS: I just became an incredible runner because of the
incredible amount of stress I had to manage.
LAH: Then she had her big idea, she would break the world record for the longest triathlon in history, and she would do it to send a message.
BASTIDAS: I designed a triathlon to follow a human trafficking smuggling route.
BRAD RILEY, I EMPATHIZE ANTI-SLAVERY GROUP: They didn't quite get it and I was showing them all those clips.
[01:45:14] LAH: Brad Riley of the anti-slavery group, I Empathize, soon joined Norma's team. He organized the permits and coordinated operations for the record-breaking attempt. He also documented her journey in a film called "Be Relentless."
BASTIDAS: We can work on it.
BASTIDAS: The waves, the water, it was destroying my gums, eating the inside of my mouth. It was very painful. That was probably one of the most painful things I've ever done.
LAH: The journey took 64 days. All told, racked up 3,762 miles, shattering the previous Guinness World Record. Along the way, there were roadside accidents, malfunctioning GPSes, constant inclement weather. But for Bastidas this was a test that had little to do with punishing waves or pounding the pavement.
BASTIDAS: As an athlete, I run, I break world records. But as a survivor of human trafficking, I was ashamed. I'm going to empower ever single victim. I ran the last two miles with survivors of human trafficking. The healing comes from seeing them, from seeing every single one of those young girls being unbroken. I just want them to be proud of me. I want to do them proud.
LAH: And for every step she takes, every mile she takes off, Norma is proving that somebody once trapped in a nightmare can now live out her dreams.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Wow.
OK, short break. When we come back, Ukraine's big Eurovision win sparked a political backlash. The song that has a Russian Senator calling for a Eurovision boycott, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(WEATHER REPORT)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [01:50:55] VAUSE: A Major League Baseball game turned into a bench- clearing brawl on Sunday. This, after bad blood between the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays from last year's playoffs flared again. The fight broke out between the Texas second baseman and a base runner after a hard slide near the end of the game. Both players were ejected.
18-year-old Max Verstappen is the youngest Formula One winner ever. Less than eight months after passing his driving test, he stood atop the podium at the Spanish Grand Prix. Verstappen has only been promoted to the Red Bull team just 10 days ago. He led the final 21 laps of the race, keeping some of his more experienced drivers from even getting close.
Eurovision song contest winner, Jamala, was welcomed in Ukraine's capitol of Kiev. Her somber tune entitled "1944" beat Australia and Russia in an upbeat international televised contest. The song tells of Crimean Tartars under Stalin but it's being seen by Russia as a statement on its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The managing editor of the "L.A. Business Journal," Sandro Monetti, joins me now for more on this.
It has been a couple of days now. Still trying to work out how this new voting system worked. And even it is very complicated or I'm daft of probably both. Can you explain it to me?
SANDRO MONETTI, MANAGING EDITOR, L.A. BUSINESS JOURNAL: How it works is you have juries of musical experts get 50 percent of the vote. And then the TV viewing public around the world has the other 50 percent of the vote. And they couldn't agree on it because Australia was seen as the clear winner by the musical experts, and what a great song it was, they were up. Australia finished second. Russia was third. The winners were Ukraine, based on the votes from the public. Took them over the top
VAUSE: This is a new way of voting, right? This has been modified.
MONETTI: The Eurovision song has been gone 61 years now. There's always so much controversy about the voting. They're always using new systems because the contest was set up to create peace and goodwill between nations.
(LAUGHTER)
Good luck with that. It always turns into a geopolitical fight. Lots of accusations, finger pointing, political statements being in, and so even though the new voting system has failed to stop --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: Business as usual, really. As you say, politics never far from the surface at the Eurovision contest. The rules state no lyrics of a political nature are allowed. So the winning song by Jamala is called 1944, about the ethnic group being expelled from Crimea. Let's take a look at the lyrics. It starts with this: "When strangers
are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all, and say we're not guilty. You think you're gods, but everyone dies."
Nothing political about that.
MONETTI: No. They don't write them like that anymore, do they?
(LAUGHTER)
Apparently, they do. Well, the rules also state that you can tell -- sing songs about history of your country, and so this is how they vault the no political songs rule.
VAUSE: It's 1981, I mean --
MONETTI: Now you're talking.
VAUSE: This is good stuff.
MONETTI: A bit different.
VAUSE: Let's have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: What happened to the good old days?
(CROSSTALK)
MONETTI: I love it.
VAUSE: Abba. Now we have --
(CROSSTALK)
MONETTI: You mentioned Abba. This is the contest that gave the world Abba in '74. Celine Dion won in '88. And Pride of Britain won in '81. It was a much more innocent time.
(CROSSTALK)
MONETTI: Catchy choruses. No political statements.
VAUSE: No statements. It is meaningless.
(LAUGHTER)
Now we've got political statements. We got the Russians are threatening to boycott next year because they're angry over it all. How is this contest -- you said it is about peace and goodwill, but --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: It is completely just the opposite.
[01:55:05] MONETTI: It is certainly interesting. The reason that Russian politicians are saying that Russia should boycott next year's contest is, if you win Eurovision, then you get to host the following- year. And the fear is the Ukrainian television will use this as a platform for political statements to fan the flames with Russians. So it should certainly make it worth watching.
VAUSE: Absolutely.
Quickly, Justin Timberlake, he performed.
MONETTI: He showed how it should be done.
VAUSE: How many votes did he get?
(LAUGHTER)
MONETTI: Not enough. America is not yet in this contest.
VAUSE: But this is interesting because Australia is. I don't understand why.
MONETTI: Austria's for the 60th anniversary of Eurovision last year was able to compete. The TV ratings in Australia were huge so now they're in it as a permanent --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: Could we see the U.S. in the Eurovision?
MONETTI: This was the first year that the show was televised in the U.S.
VAUSE: Yeah.
MONETTI: On cable and satellite networks, so we'll see, and see if Americans can find the right political song, or history, to win.
(CROSSTALK)
MONETTI: Yes.
VAUSE: Sandro, it was fun, as always. Thank you very much.
MONETTI: Thank you.
VAUSE: Making your mind up.
You are watching CNN, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
The news continues next with Rosemary Church and Errol Barnett.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
