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CNN International: U.N.: 100,000 Plus Refugees Have Fled To Neighboring Countries; Palestinian Hunger Striker Dies In Israeli Prison; New Climate Summit Getting Underway In Berlin; Hollywood Writers Go On Strikes For The First Time In 15 Years; Fashion's Biggest Night Honors Designer Karl Lagerfeld. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 02, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:25]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead, the staggering numbers out of Sudan, as we learn more than a 100,000 have fled in the past few weeks. We're live from the region.

Also ahead, could Artificial Intelligence soon be more intelligent than us? Those fears aren't unfounded as a key A.I. pioneer speaks out against the technology he helped create. And New York's Annual Met Gala delivered the glitz, the glamor, and the unexpected felines. The best moments from fashion's biggest night coming up.

United Nations is painting a dire picture on the ground in Sudan, a day after warning, the conflict there could turn into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe. The U.N. says more than 330,000 people have been internally displaced by weeks of fighting between rival military forces, and at least a 100,000 refugees have escaped a neighboring countries. It also says the global aid appeals have fallen $1.5 billion short of what actually is required.

Meanwhile, as warring generals talk about peace, the deadly violence ignited by their power struggle appears to be getting even worse. Foreign governments are still racing to evacuate their citizens from Sudan, but that window is closing.

CNN's Larry Madowo joins me now live in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This has really become ground zero for the evacuation.

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It has become ground zero for the evacuation, mostly because the only safe place that most people can get to in Sudan is Port Sudan. It's still a long journey. Sometimes it can take up to 30 hours to travel that 830 kilometers more than 500 miles.

And when they get to Port Sudan, if they're lucky, they can get in a ship across the Red Sea to get to here in Jeddah. The biggest shuttle service operator, so to speak, has been Saudi Royal Navy doing these trips back and forth and bringing in more than 5,000 people so far.

But also we saw yesterday, the first U.S. operated naval vessel arrive here at the U.S. and that's Brunswick, and they're likely to be more people still angling to get across the Red Sea, into Saudi Arabia and then out to safety.

And even that is still adding need to point out is only the most privileged people. They are dual national, so they're Sudanese and German, Sudanese and British, Sudanese and American, or they're permanent residents in another place, or they have valid visas to go to other places.

There are so many Sudanese people who are at Port Sudan who have not been lucky to get on one of these boats. Which is why that number from the U.N. Commission for Refugees is important. A 100,000 people, they estimate have so far led the country into neighboring countries like Egypt and Chad and South Sudan and Eritrea and Ethiopia.

And they are projecting that if this continues, as many as 800,000 people might flee Sudan. And this is only two and a half weeks into this conflict. The longer this drug's on, the more people will want to leave because they can't find the most basic necessities, food and water and medicines. Sometimes power and water lines have been bombed. They fear for the safety of their families and their kids, and that's why this all in a race to try and get out.

We're expecting another ship from Port Sudan arriving in a few hours here in Saudi Arabia. This is almost a dozen ships so far. And I expect that this will continue, Max, as long as the conflict is still running.

FOSTER: OK, Larry in Jeddah, thank you.

Anger and uncertainty in the Middle East this hour as tensions flare after the death of a prominent Palestinian prisoner, Khader Adnan, who became a symbol of Palestinian resistance, has died after an 87-day hunger strike in an Israeli prison.

He was detained in February on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organization. Palestinian detainees and a military prison in the West Bank have now begun a general hunger strike in protest. The Israel Defense forces also say several rockets were fired from Gaza, landing in open areas,.

Hadas Gold is in Jerusalem with the very latest. And this is a name that will be unfamiliar to many people around the world, but very familiar where you are.

HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, very familiar for many Palestinians here. Khader Adnan used to be a spokesperson for the militant group, Islamic Jihad, that is mostly based out of Gaza. He had been detained more than 10 times since 2004.

And this was not his first hunger strike. He had been on several other hunger strikes in the past, but I do believe this was the longest one at 86 or 87 days.

[08:05:06] The Israeli prison authorities announcing this morning that he had been found unconscious in his cell. This morning, they said that he had been refusing medical treatment. But his -- but Khader Adnan's attorney Jamal Kathib told Army Radio that they had been trying to get these Israeli authorities to move Khader Adnan to a civilian medical facilities saying that the prison medical facilities they said were not sufficient.

At the time of his death, he had been detained under what's called administrative detention. This is something that's often used by Israeli authorities. This means that he had not yet faced charges or trials. Israeli authorities often used these sorts of detentions they say for security purposes.

The reaction, though, has been quite strong from the Palestinians. We saw at least three rockets fired from Gaza towards Israel, most likely by, Islamic Jihad. But the Israeli authorities say that they, landed in open areas that did not cause any damage.

There are widespread general strikes, both in the West Bank and Gaza. This means everything from stores and shops to schools are closed as a result. We are also hearing from Khader Adnan's wife, and she actually said she does not want rockets to be fired as a result of her husband's death. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDA MUSA, KHADER ADNAN'S WIFE (through translator): Not a drop of blood was spilled during the previous prisoner's hunger strikes, and today we say with the rise of the martyr and his accomplishment of what he wished for, we do not want a drop of blood to be spilled. We do not want someone to respond to his martyrdom. We do not want rockets to be launched and then for Gaza to be struck after.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLD: Now the Palestine Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh has called Khader Adnan's death a -- what he said a deliberate assassination. Shtayyeh saying, "By refusing his request to release him, neglecting him medically, and keeping him in his cell, despite the seriousness of his health condition."

As you noted, Khader Adnan became really a symbol of Palestinian resistance, a symbol of Palestinian prisoners. There are at least, nearly 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. About a 1,000 of them, according to the Palestinian Prisoner Society, are being held under similar administrative detention is cutter on, and that means that they have been brought to trial or charge. Max?

FOSTER: OK, Hadas, thank you for that update.

We are getting a clearer picture of the price Russia is paying for the war against Ukraine. The White House says it's declassifying intelligence showing Russian forces have suffered more than a 100,000 casualties since December alone. That includes 20,000 killed in action in the battle for Bakhmut. The White House adds it, has no plans to share Ukrainian casualty figures.

Our Nick Paton Walsh joins us from Zaporizhzhia with the very latest. What do you make of this figure, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yes, look, it's hard to really know exactly how much stock to put into it because the White House have not been particularly forthcoming as to how they've made this calculation. A 100,000 casualties includes dead and injured, but they are clear that they're looking at 20,000 dead, which would suggest a sort of one to four ratio of wounded versus dead.

A pretty strong performance for Russia on a battlefield evacuating its wounded and helping them survive. So we don't really know quite where the White House got to a 100,000 from, whether that was what they heard over some intelligence they received or whether they heard the 20,000 dead number. Half of which they've gone on to clarify are Wagner fighters suggesting that may well be convicts taken by the Wagner mercenary group and sent to the frontline predominantly around Bakhmut.

But the number of a 100,000 is utterly extraordinary because that is the number since December. That is not the overall casualty figure. So I think there will be some questions being asked the White House as exactly how they did obtain this data that Kremlin has said that Washington has no way of knowing and have only officially recognized themselves anyway, just over 5,000 dead.

But it is again, I think a bid to show in Washington the extraordinary damage done by Russia to itself, frankly, over a winter offensive where they focused almost solely on Bakhmut, a town of minimal strategic value, but massive symbolic importance now. And a town that despite over the past weeks, Russia beginning to send signals that it thought it was about to conclusively, encircle and take. Well, one that now Ukraine is sounding increasingly bullish and confident about holding onto parts of.

And so as we near this Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Americans very clearly try to send out signals about Russia's missteps, about its extraordinary losses be. And no doubt, they have clearly obviously lost a lot of convict soldiers, their arm forces devastated by how poorly executed this unprovoked invasion has been.

But the message clearly about showing Russia's degraded military as we edge towards a counteroffensive, I'm standing here in Brilliant Sunshine, which has been on off, frankly, for the past two or three weeks. A lot of rain has been on the field. That's according to the U.K. -- sorry, the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Kingdom is perhaps one reason as to why the -- we're not be seeing heavy tanks in the fields just yet, but frankly, the men will be out of our view as well.

[08:10:20]

And Ukraine's been very clear. It's not going to sound a bugle of the start of this counter offensive. And we are, too, seeing reports from the Russian side of pinpoint strikes against multiple parts of their key infrastructure. Another one indeed across the Russian border, another instant occurring in which Russian officials said there was an explosion that targeted key infrastructure there as well.

So a definite change in the pace of, explosions that we're seeing around this region. And a sign I think that the counteroffensive is nearing, if not already in some form underway. Max?

FOSTER: OK. Nick Paton Walsh in Ukraine, thank you.

The phasing out of fossil fuels is the focus as a new round of talks aimed at solving the climate crisis gets underway in Berlin. Envoys from dozens of countries are attending the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. The two-day summit is meant to lay some of the groundwork for the Big COP 28 conference, which is in Dubai, later this year.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Berlin. Fred, what progress are we seeing there?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Max. Well, well you're absolutely right. First of all, that they are trying to lay the groundwork for that COP 28 summit that's going to happen in the UAE later this year. And that's certainly something where you did feel from Germany, which was the host of the conference that happened here today, that they did feel a sense of urgency in order to do that.

And we were able to speak with Annalena Baerbock, the German. Foreign Minister and she said that one of the main things that the German feel is that there needs to be progress made on richer nations, helping poorer nations to be able to deal with the fallout from climate change. That's not even trying to keep the temperatures down or trying to cut carbon emissions. That's helping to deal with the climate change and the impact of climate change that is already going on.

Now, one of the things that the German Foreign Minister acknowledged before she started off this major conference is she said, she believes that there has been a lot of talk. There's, obviously, been a lot of papers, memorandums that have been signed, but so far too little progress is being made on trying to cut carbon emissions and on trying to get temperatures to not rise as fast.

Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNALENA BAERBOCK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We all know it's not enough to describe that we're not meeting our targets. We have to say how we want to change course to finally get back on the 1.5 degrees path.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So that 1.5 degrees, that's essentially the nations of the world saying that they want to cut carbon emissions, they want to stop climate change. They don't want the climate to get warmer by more than 1.5 degrees, Max.

Now, of course, at this point in time, the German Foreign Minister acknowledged and basically everybody else who was there acknowledged as well the nations of this world are failing to do that. And it was quite interesting because the German Foreign Minister also said that she believes that there needs to be a commitment at the upcoming COP 28 at the end of this year for targets on renewable energy.

To make sure that renewable energy happened in more places around the world, that more countries are outfitted to be able to take advantage of renewable energy, for instance, sun, for instance, wind, but others as well. And she believes that concrete targets need to be set out and there need to be benchmarks as well.

So that's one of the reasons why this meeting today was so very important. And as you said, in effect, what they're doing is they're laying the agenda, laying the groundwork for COP 28, where certainly the UAE has said they want to see real progress being made, Max.

FOSTER: OK, Fred Pleitgen, thank you for joining us.

Production on some of your favorite TV shows could soon come to a grinding halt. Hollywood's television and film writers are going on strike for the first time in 15 years. The Writer's Guild of America failed to reach an agreement with studios over staffing and other issues in the era of streaming. The union says writers face an existential threat, is what late show -- talk show host -- late night talk show host, Stephen Colbert said on Monday night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Everybody, including myself, hopes both sides reach a deal. But I also think that the writers' demands are not unreasonable. I'm a member of the Guild. I support collective bargaining. This nation owes so much to unions. They're the reason.

(APPLAUSE)

Unions. This is true. Unions are the reason we have weekends. And by extension, why we have TGI Fridays.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich she's outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, where The Late Show has seen Colbert is filmed.

Just explain, if you would, Vanessa, you know, the issue with streaming, it's that they -- the writers don't get the same amount of money from the repeats. Is that correct, as they used to have?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. And the impacts of this strike are going to be felt today because late night shows are going to be airing rerun. Stephen Colbert will be doing that this evening.

[08:15:09]

But the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, had six weeks to try to get this contract done. They could not come to a deal. The Writers Guild of America says that the proposal from the studios was wholly insufficient.

However, the studios say that they made increases to compensation. They made increases to residuals for streaming, and they were willing to go above that. But the key sticking point according to the studios is that writers wanted -- the Writers Guilds wanted more writers in the rooms, and they wanted writers to be committed to projects for longer durations, whether or not those writers were needed or not. So that is the key sticking point we are hearing this morning.

One of the things to look out for, though, is how this plays out over the next couple days and weeks. You know, we have heard from studios that they have -- have had to take cost-cutting measures. They have had to go through layoffs, but we've also heard from writers that there are simply not enough jobs right now that writers cannot support themselves on writers' salaries, and that is because of this transition from broadcast to streaming.

Also, worth pointing out, Max, that there is an economic ripple effect here. The 11,000 writers that are going on strike has an impact on other workers. This could impact 20,000 other workers. This could impact 600 productions and this could cost billions of dollars.

Max, the last strike, as you mentioned, was in 2007, that lasted a 100 days. The economic impact of that was 2 billion, adjusted for inflation, $3 billion, depending on how long this goes. This could really hurt the economy as well as people's jobs, Max?

FOSTER: OK, Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Still to come, Artificial Intelligence has come a long way in a short amount of time. Is it time to slow it down now? We'll take a look.

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FOSTER: Should there be a moratorium on Artificial Intelligence technology? That's the question being asked after A.I. pioneered Geoffrey Hinton quit Google. He's now speaking out about the dangers of the tech that he helped develop.

Among those dangers, spreading misinformation and replacing jobs. Hinton told the New York Times where he thinks Artificial Intelligence is heading. He said the idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people, a few people believed that.

But most people thought it was a way off, and I thought it was a way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer a way. Obviously, I no longer think that. Let's talk about that timeline and whether it should be paused. We are joined by Carissa Veliz, she's an associate professor at Oxford University's Institute for Ethics in A.I. Thank you so much for joining us.

[08:20:07]

Just summarize what you think this former Google executive was saying, because as I understand it, he's basically saying that A.I. is about to get more intelligent than humans, and much sooner than anyone imagined.

CARISSA VELIZ, ASSOC. PROFESSOR, INSTITUTE FOR ETHICS IN A.I.: That is one suggestion, and I think that is the least of our worries. We already have huge problems way before A.I. becomes smarter than human beings, if it ever does. It doesn't have to become smarter for democracy to be at risk. And for me, one of the interesting things that he said is that today he regrets part of his life's work and I think that should alarm us.

FOSTER: Because he's concerned that it might be used for bad things as he put it.

VELIZ: Yes, exactly. He mentioned how the most immediate concern is one of misinformation. One of the characteristics of these systems is not only that they fabricate false information, but that they fabricate incredibly plausible false information. Now that makes them the perfect creators of misinformation at a time when we still don't get -- haven't -- gotten the hang of how to deal with this misinformation and to do -- to make a system, produce this at scale is incredibly risky for democracy.

FOSTER: Isn't this already a problem though? How do you reign it back in at this point and who reigns it back in?

VELIZ: Well, we've regulated a lot of other industries that we can take inspiration from the pharmaceutical companies to railways and cars and food and the financial systems. So in much the same way as we did before, we create specialized agencies that deal with AI specifically, and we ensure that we have security systems before these systems are rolled out.

At the moment, the general public is being treated as Guinea pigs. We would never allow that with drugs and we should allow it with A.I. So we have to have in place systems like randomized control trials and peer review to make sure these systems are safe before they go out into the public.

FOSTER: What's your biggest concern? Do you share the same concern about misinformation basically?

VELIZ: Yes. I think the biggest concern is democracy in general. Not only misinformation. One of the things I argue in my book, "Privacy is Power" is that because these systems are scraping off so much personal data, we are losing power as a citizenry. And that has all kinds of implications, for instance, for equality because we are being treated on the basis of our data and not as equal citizens. FOSTER: OK, Carissa Veliz from Oxford University, thank you very much indeed for answering our questions today.

VELIZ: Thank you very much.

FOSTER: Coming up, the world of fashion descended on New York City on Monday night to celebrate the legacy of iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. We'll bring you the most iconic moments from this year's Met Gala.

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FOSTER: Since 2005, the first Monday of May has meant only one thing in the world of fashion, and that is the Met Gala in New York City. This year, guests were asked to pay tribute to the late German fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld, who was at the center of the theme, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.

Lagerfeld served as creative director of the French luxury brand, Chanel for decades. He also oversaw the creative output of Fendi and Chloe. Among the guests, the regular attendees, Kylie and Kendall Jenner and Kim Kardashian, who wore a dress made of 50,000 pearls.

[08:25:09]

At least one major star wasn't there though, that is Choupette, Karl Lagerfeld's beloved cat. But there were plenty of feline references in her honor. Take a look at some of the most eye-catching moments and the wildest looks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Valentino, baby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are we feeling tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good, good. Expensive.

(MUSIC)

(Speaking Foreign Language)

ANNA WINTOUR, VOGUE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: I'm so sorry. I don't speak Spanish, but I did Penelope Cruz.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Which is your favorite? Anyway, a note now on some coronation fashion, royal fashion. In keeping with his own interest of sustainability, Buckingham Palace has announced that the king will reuse historic items of clothing in his coronation. The Coronation Sword Belt and Coronation Gloves were previously worn by his grandfather, King George VI back in 1937. His majesty will wear these as he's crowned on Saturday.

Thanks for joining me here on CNN Newsroom. I'm Max Foster in London.

World Sport with Amanda up next.

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