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Sri Lankans Enjoying Luxuries of Presidential Palace; Russian Blockade Driving Food Crisis in North Africa; One Dead After Shootout Between Lula and Bolsonaro Supporters; Abortion Rights Activists Protest Outside White House; Protest Outside Bank in Zhengzhou, China Turns Violent; NASA to Reveal Images from Webb Telescope Tuesday. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 11, 2022 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: This video was taken and side Sri Lanka's presidential palace where protesters have been singing, playing instruments and basically making themselves right at home since storming the palace over the weekend.

With Sri Lanka's economy in free fall, months of anger at the government finally boiled over this weekend. Protesters now occupy the official residences of both the president and prime minister, they say they are saying, quote, until both leaders officially resign. And how that transition of power will eventually play out is still uncertain.

Now Russia's invasion is having an impact on the cost of food all around the world, especially true in North Africa where many countries depend on grain imports. And in a region rocked by last decades Arab Spring, there are fears that soaring prices could fuel more unrest. For more we're going to cross to CNN's David McKenzie who is live for us in Tunisia -- David.

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right, Max, you know, we've been worrying about what the impact of this war and the blockade of millions of tons of grain in Ukraine will have. And across the world, of course, people are feeling the pinch of inflation. Here in north Africa specifically here in Tunis there really is that feeling now that this is starting to hit, and it's pushing people over the edge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Racing to feed a nation in the closing days of Tunisia's summer harvest.

Russia's cynical ploy to hold hostage more than 20 million tons of Ukrainian grain is leading to a food crisis here in Tunisia and much of North Africa.

MCKENZIE: Are you worried it will have a long-term impact on Tunisia?

HABIB MRABET, REGIONAL DELEGATE, TUNISIAN AGRICULTURE MINISTRY (through translator): The war has really impacted both the consumer and our agricultural productions. Right now, every country must become self-reliant. If that's not possible, things are going to get very difficult.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): They're scrambling to increase that production and change consumer habits.

In sunbaked Tunisia, farmers grow hard wheat to make pasta and couscous.

MCKENZIE: But for soft wheat, the wheat that makes bread, Tunisia gets around 60 percent of it from Ukraine and Russia. An official told me that they'll never be able to make up that number here, not in five years, not even in ten.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): That spells trouble, says Shakira Muddhi (ph).

"We can only saw with the government gives us," he says. The baguettes are subsidized by a government heavily in debt. Tunisia can barely afford imported flour from outside of Ukraine.

"It's about daily survival. When the people are hungry, they rebel," he says.

[04:35:00]

Here, they are just recovering from the crushing COVID pandemic, and a decade of political uncertainty. The impact of the war in Ukraine could not have come at a worse time.

Even retired professionals like Houria Bousad and her husband can only afford a few luxuries.

HOURIA BOUSAD, RETIRED TEACHER: The prices -- all the food, they're going up.

MCKENZIE: And what does that mean for you and your family?

BOUSAD: Young people, they cannot marry now. They don't have enough money to live. They cannot have a family.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): "I've sold nothing today," says that (ph), "absolutely nothing. This place should be jam-packed before the Eid holiday," he says, "but nobody can afford meat."

On the roadside, farmers like Walid (ph) are struggling to sell their sheep for Eid celebrations. The sheep don't seem to mind.

"Animal feed prices are doubled because of Ukraine. It's a chain reaction that's bad enough now," he says, "but the effect of the war is really going to be felt next year."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE (on camera): And you can really feel the pinch over the Eid celebrations here, Max, a very important part of the year in this part of the world. But what do they do next? Now the government is talking about increasing the amount of land that is growing that hard wheat. Just a few days ago they secured 150 million dollar loan from the World Bank to try and purchase imported wheat, but it's not just switching a switch. You can't just change production here in this country and around the world overnight. And I do worry that if this war in Ukraine drags on, you're going to have severe impacts in this country and whole of North Africa, parts of East Africa the Horn of Africa, Central Asia. A large part of the world could be impacted by this blockade of grain that is happening right now in Ukraine -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, David McKenzie live in the Tunisian capital. Thank you for that.

Now a man is dead in Brazil after gunfire erupted at his 50th birthday party over politics. According to our affiliate CNN Brazil, Marcelo Arruda, a supporter of former president Lula da Silva, was killed in southern Brazil on Saturday. Witnesses say Jorge Jose da Rocha Guaranhoa a supporter of current president Jair Bolsonaro crashed the party and was kicked out after accosting Arruda.

He returned with a gun about 20 minutes later. A warning video you are about to see may be hard to watch. Arruda's son says his father died after being shot three times, but not before firing his own weapon. Guaranhoa was also shot and is currently in critical condition.

Now COVID cases are now on the rise in the U.S., and experts warn that the new BA.5 variant is infectious even to those who are vaccinated. Details on that just ahead.

Plus, U.S. President Joe Biden has a message for the abortion rights activists protesting the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Details after the break.

[04:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: New versions of the Omicron variant are fueling a summer surge of COVID-19 in the U.S. Health officials are now urging many Americans to return to masking indoors. According to Johns Hopkins and the CDC, coronavirus infections nationwide are up 6 percent, with more than 100,000 new cases reported each day over the past two weeks. Earlier CNN spoke with Dr. Eric Topol. He's a cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. We asked him about the concerns over the new and very contagious BA.5 variant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ERIC TOPOL, CARIOLOGIST: This variant, BA.5, is so distinct from the BA.1 Omicron, where a lot of people -- 40 percent of Americans and throughout the world, there was common infections. They do not protect from this variant BA.5. In this is crucial, because this variant so unrecognizable to our immune system known to previous versions of the virus. So that's why gearing up with things like high-quality masks in the distancing and air filtration, ventilation, all these things are important. No less critically important are getting boosters and second shots for people over age 50. That's how we can increase protection against BA.5.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesperson says Schumer has a very mild symptoms and that the Senator is fully vaccinated and doubled boosted. The New York Democrat to isolate and work remotely this week as the Senate returns to Washington after the July 4 recess.

A lakeside beach in Iowa is temporarily closed, after a swimmer was hospitalized with a rare brain eating amoeba. It is most often found in fresh warm water such as lakes, rivers and ponds. Health officials say the amoeba can infect people when contaminated water enters the body through the nose. The infection can be life-threatening, though it's incredibly rare. Since 1962 there've only been 154 known cases in the U.S.

Abortion rights activists were in Washington over the weekend vowing to keep their fight up over the Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. And as CNN's Jeremy Diamond reports, U.S. President Joe Biden has a message for them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Biden spent his weekend at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. But in front of the White House this weekend, we saw protest from abortion rights activists. And President Biden taking a moment as he was going on a bike ride to comment on some of those protests, encouraging abortion rights activists to continue to make their voices heard.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, keep protesting because -- keep making your point. It is critically important. We can do a lot of things to accommodate the rights of women in the meantime. But fundamentally, the only thing that is going to change this is if we have a national law that reinstates Roe v. Wade. That's the bottom line. The only way we do that is through an election in the United States Congress.

In the meantime, states can make those judgements. But so, my ultimate goal is to reinstate Roe v. Wade as a national law by passing it in United States Congress, and I will sign it the moment that happens.

DIAMOND: And the president there at the end making that fundamental point that what he needs is for voters to go out and elect more pro- choice Democrats so that he can codify abortion rights into law, passing a bill through Congress that he would then sign.

The president in the meantime is taking executive action. He signed an executive order on Friday that seeks to safeguard women's access to reproductive health care, including medication, abortion, also taking steps to protect women's privacy and safety at these abortion clinics.

[04:45:02]

That's something that the president talked about again on Sunday. But ultimately making clear here, the president was, on Sunday that, look, he can take some piecemeal steps to try and help the current situation but ultimately, he's going to need Congress to act and that's where voters come in in November.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, travelling with the president in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: A massive protest over frozen bank deposits turned violent in Zhengzhou, in China. Police clashed with demonstrators on Sunday who were angry that some rule banks have kept millions of dollars frozen since April. At the time, the bank said they were upgrading their internal systems. But customers say they've heard nothing from the banks about the matter since then. The protest was amongst the largest in China since the pandemic. For more on this, I am joined by CNN's Steven Jiang in Beijing. Really dramatic scenes there. Ones we rarely see from this part of the world.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: That's right Max. Quite an extraordinary scene, to see more than 1,000 people show up on Sunday morning in front of this government building to demand money back. That's the exact kind of gathering the provincial authorities have hell-bent to prevent. Even trying to temper with these people's health QR codes. Which of course, is a basic necessity in China these days to even leave your home. But that effort failed, after a nationwide backlash.

That's why this protest took place, with demonstrators really training their fire at a local authorities and burning national flags, chanting slogans, with some banners accusing the local police of using violence against them and even calling for human rights and the rule of law. But their peaceful messages and tactics didn't really make their protests last that long.

After a few hours, you could see hundreds of local security personnel, many plain clothed agents charging towards the crowd. Forcefully removing everyone, including the elderly and children. Anyone who resisted got kicked and punched. And some sustaining injuries, according to some protesters. And these protesters actions implied really have struck a chord with many people across the nation. Because they are mostly low income people, who lost their entire life savings because of their faith in the country's banking system. And that of course is happening at a time when the economy has already been battered by the very harsh enforcement of this zero COVID policy. Not to mention, it's also a very politically sensitive time as Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to take a trusted and breaking third term later this year. That is why the provincial authorities here are taking no chances, Max. And really, trying not have any sparks that could ignite even more anger and frustration. Not only in their province, but across China -- Max.

FOSTER: And we'll keep an eye on it. Steven, thank you very much for joining us from Beijing.

Still to come on the program. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM MELROY, DEPUTY NASA ADMINISTRATOR: What I have seen, just moved me. As a scientist, as an engineer, and as a human being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: They say it's like nothing we have ever seen before. NASA prepares to release the first images captured by Omega telescope. Details coming after the break.

[04:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Scientists and space enthusiasts all over the world are eagerly awaiting the release of images from NASA's James Webb Telescope on Tuesday. Some people have already been given a sneak peek. They say the high resolution images are like nothing they have ever witnessed and will change the way we see the universe. CNN's Kristin Fisher has this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And lift-off.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Six months after the most powerful telescope ever made launched into space, the team inside the Webb Space Telescope's flight control room is preparing to reveal what astronomers all over the world have been waiting for, for decades. The telescope's first full-color images, which are expected to be light years more impressive than the test images released last month and will include the deepest image of our universe that's ever been taken.

KEN SEMBACH, DIRECTOR, SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE: Our view of the universe is definitely going to change on July 12th.

FISHER (voice-over): Ken Sembach runs the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, home to Webb's mission control, and he predicts the day that that Webb's first images are released will be on par with the day that Galileo became the first person to ever point a telescope to the sky.

SEMBACH: There'll be a universe we knew before Webb and a universe we know after Webb. I really mean that. I think our perspective will change.

FISHER (voice-over): NASA says some of the images released on July 12th still need to be taken. Others have already been captured and are being kept secret, but NASA's leadership has gotten a sneak peek.

MELROY: What I have seen just moved me as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being.

THOMAS ZURBUCHEN, ASSOCIATE NASA ADMINISTRATOR: A sense of awe and frankly, I got emotional.

FISHER (voice-over): But getting emotional about the telescope is something Lee Feinberg has learned to bury after working on Webb for more than two decades. The telescope's most recent brush with death took place just a couple weeks ago, when a micro meteoroid struck one of the telescope's massive golden mirrors, which are critical for its operation.

LEE FEINBERG, WEBB'S OPTICAL TELESCOPE ELEMENT MANAGER: Earlier in my career, it might have been a punch in the gut, but what I've learned about working on a big project like this is things are never as bad as they first seem, or never as good as they first seem.

FISHER (voice-over): He was right. The telescope survived the strike, and NASA is now on the verge of handing this $10 billion telescope over to the scientists whose research proposals have been selected for the first year of observations.

FEINBERG: It is just doing as well as we could've hoped, if not better. And so, I think the scientists are just going to be extremely happy to use it. And we're going to be excited to see what gets -- you know, what comes out of it.

FISHER: Kristin Fisher, CNN, Baltimore.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Earlier CNN spoke to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. He explained more about what makes the James Webb Telescope so special.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[04:55:00]

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: This telescope is exquisitely tuned to observe galaxies forming at the origin of the universe. And those galaxies -- that people didn't otherwise know. Those galaxies are very intensely radiating ultraviolet light. And in some cases, x- rays. And so, but this telescope is not tuned for ultraviolet. Because over the 13 and a half billion years that the light has been traveling. The universe has been expanding. And that expansion of the universe has stretched the wavelength of the light. And transformed it from ultraviolet, into infrared. Which is a longer wavelength life.

So, this is a telescope that's capturing light as it comes to us. Not as it was first emitted. And so, that's part of the brilliance and the concept, of how and why this telescope works. Why we expect it to basically transform our understanding of the universe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, President Biden will release one of the first images later today. And NASA will live stream that preview at 5 p.m., eastern, 10 p.m. in London.

Novak Djokovic has done it again. The world number three won his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title on Sunday. Djokovic defeated Australian Nick Kyrgios who advanced to the final after Rafael Nadal pulled out due to injury. Kyrgios got off to strong start, but it wasn't enough. Djokovic now has seven Wimbledon men's singles crowns, and 21 grand slam singles titles -- would you believe. He is now second on the all-time list of most men's singles grand slam.

Djokovic had previously said, he would be willing to miss tournaments, because he's not vaccinated against COVID-19. As a result, he may not be able to play the U.S. open which is tennis's next major event. Because you just have to prove your vaccination there.

Now, thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. "EARLY START" with Christine Romans and Laura Jarrett is up next here on CNN.

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