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Israel Responds To Gaza Rocket Fire With Airstrikes; Over Half Of India Under Lockdown; Vaccine Hesitancy Posing Major Challenges; China Reports Slowest Population Growth In Decades; Anger Grows As Government Tries To Quell Unrest; WSJ: Bill And Melinda Gates Working On Divorce Since 2019. Aired 12-12:45a ET
Aired May 11, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me. I'm Robyn Curnow.
Ahead on CNN --
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CURNOW (voice-over): Sirens sound over Jerusalem, as tensions between Palestinian protesters and the police veered into military conflict.
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CURNOW (voice-over): CNN is on the ground in rural India, a place where there is no doctor, no clinic and COVID sick villages are left to fend for themselves.
Plus, China's population problem led to its lowest growth rate, how it could impact the economy.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: Great to have you with me this hour.
So tensions are high as violent clashes over Jerusalem escalated dramatically on Monday. Weeks of skirmishes between Israeli police and Palestinians intensified into rocket fire and airstrikes.
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CURNOW (voice-over): Nighttime clashes erupted at the Al-Aqsa complex when Israeli police entered the mosque, after evening prayers.
Israel responded to rocket fire from Gaza with airstrikes. The Palestinian health ministry says 20 people were killed, including 9 children. It's unclear whether they died as a result of the airstrikes. Hadas Gold has more?
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HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Palestinians running from flash bangs fired by Israeli police, at the Al-Aqsa mosque. Israelis ducking for cover, as incoming rockets fired from Gaza streak through the sky. A day when tensions have escalated dramatically.
There is a red alert going off.
Sirens even sounding in Jerusalem.
There are women right now, cradling their children on the ground.
Palestinians digging in Monday at the Al-Aqsa mosque, attending to erect barricades and raising glee for mass flags (ph). Pelting Israeli forces with rocks and fireworks. Leading police to move in with force with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Despite police telling nationalist Israelis that they could not marched through the Damascus gate to the Old City, some right wing activists were arrested for barging ahead and attempting to break through the barricades.
The deteriorating security situation in Jerusalem leading to an abrupt, early end to the corruption trial proceedings for the day against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The escalating unrest leading officials to divert the course of Monday's planned Jerusalem Day flag march, a day many feared would put Israeli nationalists on a direct collision course with the Palestinian protesters in the Old City, a move that angered Israeli right-wing politicians, who threatened to cancel the march in protest as revelers continued to dance and chant with the flags until sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from Gaza began to ring out and forced them to take cover.
Some Palestinians cheering, as Hamas made good on a threat to retaliate against what it views as Israeli aggression on Palestinians in Jerusalem. Israel responding in kind with targeted airstrikes in Gaza.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): We will not tolerate harm to our territory, to our capital, to our citizens or to our soldiers. He who attacks us will pay a heavy price.
GOLD (voice-over): As calls for de-escalation of violence by the international community, so far go unheeded.
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CURNOW: Hadas Gold reporting there from Jerusalem.
So after meeting with Jordan's foreign minister U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken called on all sides to deescalate. He expressed concern about what he called provocative actions in and around the Temple Mount and rocket attacks from Gaza, take a listen.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Even as all sides take steps to de-escalate, Israel, of course, has a right to defend its people and its territory from these attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) and maintaining peace in Jerusalem is key.
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CURNOW: Joining me now to discuss, Danny Danon, chairman of World Likud and former Israeli ambassador to the U.N.
Thanks so much for joining me sir, I appreciate you being on air this hour with me. So the U.S. secretary of state, suggesting the Israeli police actions in the noble sanctuary or the Temple Mount is being provocative.
So why have security forces gone on the offensive there, in these final days of Ramadan in Al-Aqsa mosque and in the leadup to Jerusalem Day?
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DANNY DANON, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Good morning. What we saw the last 24 hours was an orchestrated provocation by the PA. We have to look back a few weeks when the president declared that he was postponing the election in the PA. It was supposed to take place after 17 years, since 2004.
In order to shift public opinion in the PA against Israel, he started to incite and what we saw yesterday were the results of the incitement. They've got nothing to do with anything that we did.
We basically allowed Muslims, Jews and Christians to pray together like always. It was a clear, orchestrated provocation by the PA, we thought later that day Hamas joined the cycle of violence by targeting Jerusalem with rockets.
We are doing what every other nation would do, we are defending our people, we are determined to do it and we will secure freedom of religion for all, not just for Muslims also for Christians and Jews in the city of Jerusalem.
CURNOW: How likely is a wider military conflict in Gaza?
How concerned are you this will escalate further?
DANON: (INAUDIBLE) defense and I can tell you that they always will try to be escalating situation. That's what we are doing today. We are losing our connection with Egypt and other places in the region to de- escalate the situation. But at the same time, once we do the territorial organization, it's very hard to predict the outcome.
So we are getting ready for all scenarios. We hoped it would be a quiet morning and we can go back to tranquility in the region. But at the same time, we are ready for (INAUDIBLE).
CURNOW: The catalyst to much of this violence has been Israeli efforts to remove Palestinians from parts of East Jerusalem, Palestinians say these moves are illegal.
What's your response to that?
DANON: That's an excuse. Yes, we do have disputes on different sides in Jerusalem, we have courts. It takes years to determine results. It's not the only location we're dealing with. But we know and when you look at the history that whenever you want to incite the mob against Jews, use a holy site, use the Temple Mount.
It happened in 1929, in 1936, 1948. Today we see it happening again by using holy sites, using religion in order to incite and to provoke violence in the region.
CURNOW: How is the current political stalemate and its own political future playing into Mr. Netanyahu's calculations in dealing with this current situation of reprisals and violence?
DANON: So once we are being attacked we put politics aside. That is exactly what's happening now, we work together, we fight together, we defend our people together.
At the same time, yes, the clock is ticking. I predict in the next few weeks we will see a new government in Israel.
But we are capable. We see today when prime minister Netanyahu is working together with a political rival, the minister of defense, they put politics aside when they enter the cabinet, take decisions regarding our security.
CURNOW: How concerned are you about the rhetoric, the actions, the pressure coming from nationalist youth and the far-right in Israel?
How do Israelis in the center in particular view reaction this current spate of violence in reaction to the actions we've been seeing from that sector of society?
DANON: So we are worried for radical youth from one point but what you see today the Israelis maybe they are vocal on the website. But unfortunately the Palestinians are violent. And we saw -- it seems like uniting Jerusalem, when the Jews are on the way to the Wailing Wall where they attacked vigorously.
So yes, we should call for condemnation for all sides. But I haven't heard the Palestinian leaders doing it. On the contrary, they're calling various to go to the streets to attack Jews. That is unacceptable. CURNOW: Ambassador Danny Danon, thank you very much for joining us on
CNN, appreciate you taking the time. It's early in the morning there.
And in the next hour, we'll talk with Muhammad al-Kurd (ph), a Palestinian writer whose family lives in Sheikh Jarrah.
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CURNOW: India's latest COVID-19 figures are expected any minute now. Everyone will be watching to see if they fall in for the second straight day. On Monday the number of new cases they dipped for the first time in recent. Days but it's too soon to know if this crisis has peaked.
Right now, more than half of Indian states and union territories are under full lockdowns.
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CURNOW: One of them in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Hundreds of people there defied restrictions to attend a funeral for a beloved Muslim cleric. Police say the crowd would've been in the hundreds of thousands, if COVID measures had not been in place.
And now, a warning, the video we're about to air is blurred. But it is still graphic. It appears to show bodies floating in the Ganges River. The remains of more than 30 people were pulled from its banks in eastern India, amid this second wave of the pandemic.
It's not clear if these were COVID victims. Authorities say autopsies are being performed. I want to bring in Sam Kiley, Sam is live for us in New Delhi.
You've been reporting on this now for several days.
What more can you tell us about the situation on the ground there?
Hi, Sam.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Robyn, the situation on the ground continues to have be grave. I think that's possibly an understatement, catastrophic in many parts the country, notably in New Delhi, which continues to struggle 3 weeks into the wave of the second wave infections, still struggling to deliver oxygen on the level as required.
That's a pattern that we've seen, states and territories imposing lockdowns and that includes Gujarat. One of the issues here is that it's assumed the big metropolitan areas that have been most badly hit, because they've got very dense populations.
But as we discovered in rural areas of Gujarat, that's not necessarily the case, Robyn.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KILEY (voice-over): It's the injustice of a disease that strikes at random that Govodan finds hardest to bear. He insisted he hasn't cheated anyone is life, at 70, no one will speak ill of him. A lifelong potter, every household knows him.
"I haven't a single bad habit, like cigarettes, tobacco or anything. I'm 70, I've never had a row with anyone.
So why is this happening to me?" he pleads.
For the local pharmacist, Jitu (ph), it's too much. He's done what he can to help but dozens have died here in the last month.
Govodan has been ill for three weeks. This is just his home. Most in this Gujarati village in India's west are farmers, enjoying fertile soil and plentiful livestock.
When the wave of India's second pandemic engulfed India's teeming cities, people in the rural areas were not spared. With no village doctor or medics and a shortage of hospital beds in faraway cities, many here rely on Jitu's (ph) experience as a pharmacist.
He sourced oxygen, prescribed drugs.
"There's no one, here no health centers, no doctor, no nurse, there are no facilities in this village. So then I tackled it in a way I saw fit."
Does that make you angry?
"I got very angry but what can one do?
We've got no solutions," he says.
Dinesh says he tried to get his father into 4 hospitals but they were full. His father was diagnosed as a severe COVID patient.
He's seen the devastation of his village, yet his fear is no longer death; it's that COVID will destroy his family.
His daughter has COVID, his wife, too. She's struggling to breathe on their veranda, under the eyes of Hindu deities.
Their home is not far from the village crematorium, which is where volunteer efforts shift from Jitu to Jirgashanga. Until today he's been cremating people almost constantly. Now he clears up their remains. He's brought extra wood for what he fears is coming.
In the village, there are homes which have lost up to 3 people, uncle, son, mother, he's kept careful records.
Just in the last month, he tells me, this is the list of them, he's burned 90 people. In an average year, he burns 30 over 12 months; 90 in one.
Vessels already for families to carry the ashes of their dead, urns made by the potter, before he fell ill to a disease which has taken so many of his neighbors.
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KILEY: Now, Robyn, a few days ago, the central government estimated that there were just under 900,000, just under 1 million people in need of oxygen, 170,000 actually on ventilators.
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KILEY: That number almost certainly has gone up. International aid has been pouring in but it's, relatively speaking, a small amount. What has to happen and is slowly happening is that the central government gets its grip on the oxygen crisis but more widely now there's a lot of pressure on the central government to organize and impose a national lockdown, rather than seeing it organized state by state. That's the key issue here, is, from the scientific perspective, doctors stop the spread of the infection or nothing else will really improve, Robyn.
CURNOW: Sort of this ad hoc patchwork of responses, clearly not working. Sam Kiley, thanks for your reporting, there on the ground in New Delhi.
Here in the U.S., federal health officials, authorizing emergency use of Pfizer's COVID vaccine to include people ages 12 to 15. This is the first COVID vaccine authorized for use in younger teens and adolescents, in the U.S.
It is a huge step forward in the country's recovery from the pandemic. A CDC advisory committee, meeting on Wednesday, expecting to sign off on its use before vaccinations begin.
Dr. Ashish Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Doctor, hi. Wonderful news to see you. Also wonderful that, in the U.S., younger teenagers are now able to be cleared, perhaps, in the next few days.
What do you make of that?
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Thank you for having me on. And it is wonderful. I think the more people that can get vaccinated, the better it will build population immunity.
Of course, it will protect them. So the FDA clearing 12 to 15-year- olds, they will do next with their advisory committee and I expect that in the next few days. Will be great for kids in that range and will do a lot for population immunity and it's just a good thing moving forward.
CURNOW: It's a great thing, also, for getting kids back into school.
How soon do you think that there is going to be younger kids who will be in line? JHA: I think the younger kids, under 12, 11 and under, might be any months away. We just don't have the trials yet, we want to make sure these things are safe and we're getting the dosing right. So we don't know.
I do think it will help with schools, it's just not necessary for schools, of course. Teachers and staff will all be vaccinated. I think it wasn't critical but it will definitely help with that as well.
CURNOW: What is so jarring for many people, for me, I have a 14-year- old, we all can't wait for her to get the jab. But I also have a 97- year-old grandmother and a 70-year-old mother in South Africa who haven't and don't know when they will get the vaccine.
It just gives us a sense within our own family about vaccine inequality in different parts of the world. That my 14-year-old will get it ahead of her great-grandmother.
JHA: This is actually quite a huge problem. What we have is deep inequalities, across the world and the key, in my, mind is to not pick one group off of another. I support 12 to 15-year-olds getting in the United States. It's not as if that we didn't do that, those vaccines would automatically end up elsewhere.
But plus, there is a small number there. I do think America now has access of vaccines and quite a large storage of vaccines. It needs to get those out to South Africa, to India, to places around the world.
CURNOW: Let's talk about India. Let's talk about the death rate, the infection rates, absolutely, it is devastating in terms of the human toll.
But from the medical and virology perspective, how concerned are you about the mutations and the Indian variant, that has basically taken off?
JHA: First of all, it's absolutely devastating. It's a humanitarian crisis. My best estimate is that more than 20,000 Indians die every single day of this virus. It's really awful.
So there is a lot that needs to be done on that issue. In terms of the double mutant variant that is often discussed, the B.1.617, the good news is that the vaccines we have, the vaccines in India, as well as the vaccines available in Europe, all hold up quite well against the variant.
It doesn't seem to be much more contagious and spreading more quickly because of that. But there's also the risk, as long as infections continue to spread out of control in India, we will see more mutants and more variants yet, including ones that may have more mutations. We need to bring these infections down.
CURNOW: Let's talk about myth busting. The main responsibility, among many others around the world, is to provide, real real-time information. It's not just about doctors, again, we're hearing that.
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CURNOW: Someone I know says that they won't have the vaccine, because they're worried about making infertile. In Pilates class the other day and someone, said they had COVID, so they didn't need to get the vaccine, because they had antibodies.
How do you tell people like that, when they read something online, that those kinds of perspectives are wrong?
How are ordinary people, our viewers, dealing with these myths in real life, in real-time, in these conversations?
JHA: There, is a lot of myths, there's a lot of misinformation and some things are partly, right partly wrong. Take the person who is previously infected and, it's true, they probably don't need a vaccine right away. If they wanted to wait a few weeks, probably a couple months after the infection, it would be reasonable.
But we do know is that these vaccines are terrific and they provide a much more broader and durable level of immunity being previously expected. That's what the data suggest. Previously infected people do still need to be vaccinated.
This has been a myth that has been spread, in a very disconcerted way, to sow doubts into people. There is absolutely zero evidence that it does anything of the sort. In fact, the evidence says, women are taking it more than men, are so far and lots of women are getting vaccinated and doing well.
So I think we just need to lead with facts and data and share people's stories, so they understand what they are hearing is, really, just nonsense. It's meant to confuse.
CURNOW: Dr. Ashish Jha, good to see you, thank you very much for joining us on the show, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
JHA: Thank you.
CURNOW: The European Commission, pursuing further legal action against AstraZeneca after delayed shipments of its COVID vaccine. A E.U. spokesperson says that it's mostly procedural move, after the initial lawsuit was filed last month.
The bloc argues, AstraZeneca's delivery delays and supply issues hampered the rollout of vaccinations across Europe, resulting in a breach of contract. The drugmaker, denying that, says that it fully complied with their agreement.
In a few hours, Queen Elizabeth will attend her first big event since the death of her husband, Prince Philip. She speaks at the opening of Parliament, outlining the government's agenda for the next year.
Among those plans, the lifting of COVID restrictions, beginning next week. British prime minister, Boris Johnson, says that England is ready for the next phase and the next step, of its phased reopening. That means, people can meet in groups, of 6 indoors, among other things.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: From next Monday, you can sit inside of a pub and inside of a restaurant. You will be able to go to the cinema and children will be able to use indoor play areas. We're reopening hostels, hotels, B&Bs. We will reopen the doors to our theaters, our concert halls and business conference centers.
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CURNOW: Meanwhile, the CDC says it's too early for Europeans to plan summer holiday trips. We continue to report on that.
Meanwhile, next, on CNN, the world's most populous country sees its lowest population growth in decades. A trend that could spell trouble for this global superpower.
Plus, the military crackdown in Myanmar, taking a toll on protesters. The latest from the U.N. and one of the worst human crises, right now, in the world.
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CURNOW: The world's most populous country is reporting its slowest population growth in decades, China has just released its latest census figures, showing its population rose to 1.4 billion over last decade.
This slowdown is a trend that could have serious implications for the world's second largest economy, want to go straight to Kristie Lu Stout.
So what are the implications of this then?
Hi, Kristie, good to see you.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, major implications across the board, Robyn, as you said home to 1.4 billion people, China is the world's most populous nation. But it is changing.
And China is posting a slowdown in population growth that we haven't seen in decades. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, they just released its decade long census and it came out 10 am local time.
In the last decade 2010-2020 China posted population growth, average growth rate, of about 0.53 percent. That is 0.4 percent lower than the previous decade, this is a big deal, this is significant because it has huge implications for social welfare policy, for health care, for technology as well as for the economy. If you have a slowdown in population growth that also means a slowdown
in workforce growth. That will just make it more difficult for trying to catch up to the United States, in terms of GDP and economic growth.
So why is this happening?
It's because birth rates are falling, especially in urban areas. Experts say couples are choosing to have less children or no children at all, because of rising living costs, they value their independence over having a. Family
I spoke with a professor of sociology, a demographic expert at the University of North Carolina. He said that China has posted its slowest population growth since 1962. He says that China is aware of this, that's why over the years it has been moving away from manual labor, investing more into high tech, take a listen.
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YONG CAI, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA: Chinese government is clear, society is aware of that and the structural adjustment is ongoing. The truth is, the cheap labor basically, people working nonstop, leaving their family behind, those kinds of base are getting behind us.
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STOUT: Nevertheless, there is pressure on the Chinese government to roll out measures to boost population growth. Some say that China may have to relax its birth control policies altogether. Back in 2016 when China scrapped its decades-long one child policy, replace it with a two child policy.
But the population growth has continued to slow down, even as a result of that, back to you.
CURNOW: Just a question, how does a nation count 1.4 billion people amid a pandemic?
STOUT: It's pretty incredible, according to Xinhua, it's said that it fanned out census takers across the nation to take the report, collecting IDs, names, gender, profession, educational background, et cetera. But of course, you got to keep in mind it was about mid to the end of last year when China compared to the rest the world, it managed to contain or control the pandemic within its own borders. That's why they're able to freely move about the country and take this data for the census report, Robyn?
CURNOW: OK, thanks to that, Kristie Lu Stout there live in Hong Kong, thanks Kristie.
To Myanmar where 781 protesters have been killed according to the U.N., thousands more injured since the military coup, three months ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHANE DUJARRIC, U.N. SPOKESPERSON: Our colleagues on the ground say, they remained appalled by the ongoing violence, at the hands of security forces since the military took over the government on February 1st.
Now in its fourth month, the situation in Myanmar has fast become one of the most -- excuse me -- one of the worst protection and human crisis is in the world today.
CURNOW (voice-over): Protesters have filled the streets and hundreds of cities in towns, despite this brutal crackdown. A social media blackout has slowed the resistance but a national strike and other measures have crippled Myanmar's economy.
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CURNOW: The U.N. says, the protest and the pandemic could force half the country into poverty, by next year. Meanwhile, ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi appeared in court by video link on Monday. Her attorney says she looked to be in good health, she has 2 more court dates this months, including one for alleged violations of the official secrets act.
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Still to come, Colombia's president is calling for calm, but protest groups are calling to keep up demonstrations. More on what they're demanding. That's next.
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CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow.
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CURNOW: Monday saw more clashes between police and protesters in Colombia, strained from the pandemic and a proposed tax hike. The tax hike ignited the powder keg last month.
Now, a crackdown by security forces and the killing of at least 27 demonstrators is making things much more worse. The president is calling for calm in the city of Cali, but his meeting with the national strike committee appears to have failed.
That group is leading many of the protests. It's vying to keep demonstrations going after the government didn't show, quote, "empathy" with its demands.
Meantime, authorities are setting up roadblocks near Cali. They say it's because of the unrest and the need to stop COVID. Polo Sandoval has more from the capital of Bogota.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the release of decades worth of repressed anger and dissent. For nearly two weeks now frustrated Colombians have been taking to the streets.
Tensions started rising April 28 over government tax hikes imposed to ease the strain of the pandemic on the economy. Colombian President Ivan Duque withdrew his plan days later, but a wave of anger was already sweeping across the nation, one too late to contain.
GERALDINE LOPEZ, PROTESTOR: These tax reforms was the opportunity to loud [SIC] our voices and say no more.
SANDOVAL: But for Geraldine Lopez and her fellow protesters packing into parks and some even blocking roads, the movement has evolved into something else. Activists want to expose what they say is excessive force from Colombian police directed at protesters, much of it in the city of Cali, the heart of the movement.
LOPEZ: We really need the international community to see what is happening in Colombia.
SANDOVAL: One thing she wants the world to know about, the police shooting of protester Marcelo Agredo on April 28, the first day of protests.
Widely-shared video shows the 17-year-old kick an officer on a motorcycle. As he runs away, the officer shoots and kills the young man.
A senior member of Colombia's national police tells CNN this case is now in the hands of prosecutors.
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The U.N. secretary-general calling on authorities to exercise restraint, and it reports of human rights violations. At least 27 protesters have been killed, according to the government. But one human rights group reports as many as 47 dead, 39 of them by security forces.
JUAN PABLO RANDAZZO, PROTESTOR: The way that they decided to take these things is to bring the police forces and the military forces against their own people. That's why we're all here. We are not prepared to hear than the next day that one of our friends, that one of our family, that one of our brothers is the one who's getting killed.
SANDOVAL: Government officials maintain that leftist militants and illegal armed groups are behind some of the violence.
Meanwhile, Colombians are sinking deeper into poverty. Government statistics show the poverty rate increased from 36 percent in 2019 to 42.5 in 2020.
In the once bustling colonial tourist town of Zipaquira, Marlon Peralta (ph) was forced to go from business owner to waiting tables to support his family, waving down the few visitors who drive past his mostly empty tables.
Peralta (ph) tells me he's never seen his country in such a dismal state. He feels the pandemic only helped make the rich richer and the poor poorer, due to Colombia's economic inequality.
The husband and father of five gets emotional, saying that he feels he may be a rich man when he comes to his health and his family, but financially, he's at his worst.
From the quiet streets of historic towns to the protester-packed avenues in the nation's capital, there is hope among Colombians that things will get better. With a persistent pandemic, a violence-torn country, the only question is when.
Polo Sandoval, CNN, Bogota, Colombia.
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CURNOW: And coming up here on CNN, the high-stakes divorce with tens of billions of dollars on the line. The latest on the split between Bill and Melinda Gates and its reported connection to a convicted sex offender. Stick with us for that story. You're watching CNN.
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CURNOW: So here's a story for you. Tom Cruise, the actor, has returned his Golden Globe awards in protest of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
The "Mission: Impossible" and "Jerry Maguire" star has won three of the awards in the past, for various roles.
Cruise's move comes as the organization which gives the Golden Globes is wrapped up in controversy over multiple issues. Most notably, a lack of diversity and no black members.
U.S. broadcaster NBC announced on Monday they would skip airing the awards show in 2022 to give the Hollywood Foreign Press Association time to make necessary changes.
And we're learning Bill and Melinda Gates have been working on their divorce since 2019. That's according to "The Wall Street Journal." The billionaire power couple announced their split last week, and Dan Simon has more on many of these revelations -- Dan.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are you?
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They met at Microsoft after she started in 1987, Bill the founder and CEO. Melinda worked in product development. MELINDA GATES, WIFE OF BILL GATES: I was new to Microsoft. There were
a lot of men there. And you know, you -- you're still looking around. You know, you're still figuring it out.
BILL GATES, MICROSOFT CO-FOUNDER: But after about a year of that, you know, sort of to our surprise, certainly my surprise, we said, Hey, I love you, and she said she loved me. And then it's like, wow! And now what is going to happen?
SIMON: After 27 years of marriage, their surprising split has become a source of great intrigue. And now questions are arising whether Bill Gates' contact with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein may have played a role.
"The Wall Street Journal" reporting that Melinda Gates was concerned over her husband's relationship with Epstein, going back many years.
EMILY GLAZER, BUSINESS REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": It seems that Melinda and Bill Gates actually met with Jeffrey Epstein back in 2013. That's according to a source that we spoke with. And Melinda Gates was not happy at the time.
SIMON: That source, an unnamed former employee at the Gates Foundation. Melinda Gates made her concerns known to her husband, according to the "Journal's" Emily Glazer.
GLAZER: She expressed her frustration to Bill Gates and really didn't feel comfortable with the relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, especially since Melinda Gates is a global advocate for women and girls. And it was already known that Jeffrey Epstein, you know, had his issues. And that dismay was expressed, but Bill Gates continued meeting and having ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
SIMON: In fact, according to "The New York Times" beginning in 2011, Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions, including at least three times at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and at least once staying late into the night.
Gates emailing colleagues in 2011, "His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing, although it would not work for me," "The Times" reported. A Gates spokesperson clarifying in 2019 that he was referring only to the unique decor of the Epstein residence and Epstein's habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates. And it was in no way meant to convey a sense of interest or approval.
His spokeswoman also saying they met to discuss philanthropy and that Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so.
In 2019, Gates told "The Wall Street Journal" he did not have a business relationship or friendship with Epstein.
It's not clear whether Gates' relationship with Epstein ultimately played a role in the divorce. But while the public just learned about the divorce last week, it had apparently been in the works since 2019 and through the pandemic, according to "The Journal."
B. GATES: In the case of Melinda, it's a, you know, truly equal partner. She's a lot like me, in that she's optimistic, and she is interested in science. She's better with people than I am.
SIMON (on camera): Announcing the split last week on social media, Bill and Melinda Gates said, quote, "We no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life."
Now according to the divorce filing, they've already worked out a separation agreement to split their assets, which according to "Forbes," is estimated to be $130 billion.
Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.
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CURNOW: Well, NASA's asteroid miner has started its long journey home. Last October, OSIRIS-REx became the first space ship to land on an android. It touched down and recovered samples from Bennu, an asteroid barely with a diameter barely larger the height of the Empire State B Building.
After firing its main thrusters on Monday, OSIRIS-REx took off on a two-and-a-half-year journey back to Earth. The rock samples it's bringing back could give scientists new insights on how planets are formed.
Well, thanks for watching CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow. WORLD SPORT starts after the break, and then after that I'll be back.
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