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Trump Special Counsel Files New Election Interference Indictment; Israeli Military Says Captive Rescued From Gaza Tunnel; Zelenskyy Plans To Present Biden With "Plan For Victory" Over Russia; Kremlin Tries To Calm Fears Over Security Of Telegram After Arrest Of Founder; Moscow Responds with Anger over Pavel Durov's Detention; Rohingya Face Renewed Threats of Ethnic Cleansing; Opposition Calls for Worldwide Rallies Against Venezuela Election Results; U.N.: Pacific Islands Imperiled by Fast-Rising Sea Levels; How Solar Power Has Upgraded Production for Small Farms; Great White Shark Bites Boat Off Australian Coast. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired August 28, 2024 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm John Vause, live from Studio 8 here in Atlanta. Ahead on CNN Newsroom.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Justice Department has rewritten the charges against Donald Trump.
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VAUSE: New attempts to hold Trump accountable for election interference, a new indictment, same charges and a workaround for a controversial ruling by the Supreme Court.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi was rescued by our elite forces in a complex operation.
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VAUSE: In 332 days. This is the eighth military rescue of an Israeli hostage in Gaza. 104 to go.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Then one of them slit his throat with a big, sharp knife.
(END VIDEO CLIP)(
VAUSE: Seven years after the world said never again. It's happening again in Myanmar, with the Rohingya Muslim minority, once again the target of a vicious and deadly crackdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from Atlanta. This is CNN Newsroom with John Vause.
VAUSE: Former U.S. President Donald Trump is once again facing charges for election subversion, with special prosecutor Jack Smith filing a new indictment in federal court Tuesday. The charges remain the same, four counts related to Trump's alleged attempts to stay in power after losing in 2020 but now prosecutors have narrowed the focus of their case to comply with last month's controversial ruling by the Supreme Court, which granted presidential immunity for all official acts while in office.
Trump allegedly tried to interfere with the certification of the 2020 Electoral College results on January 6. That's when a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
And at 36 pages, the new indictments are nine pages fewer than the original, and among the many changes, removing all references to official acts and the 45th president. More details now from CNN's Katelyn Polantz.
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KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: The Justice Department has rewritten the charges against Donald Trump related to the 2020 election, focusing around his role as a candidate as he tried to spread lies of election fraud. So, this is the case that's existed for a year in federal court in Washington, DC, and was on hold as the Supreme Court looked at questions of presidential immunity.
They said that Trump couldn't be prosecuted or taken to trial on things he was doing while he was president, officially after the election, while he was still serving, even on January 6. And so the Justice Department has now responded by going to the federal grand jury in Washington and cutting down the charges against him. They have cut out things like what Donald Trump was saying to the Justice Department and officials there about spreading allegations of election fraud across the country, and instead they are making the focus be about Donald Trump and what he was told by his campaign and what he was telling private advisers of his to do to try and spread this idea of election fraud, especially in battleground states, and to block Congress from certifying his loss of the election.
One of the things though, that is very important going forward, in the coming days, we're going to see a lot of discussion about this is the role of Mike Pence as the vice president. Pence is still in this charging document against Donald Trump, the rewritten pared down version, and Pence is very likely to be a witness both in the coming weeks, in upcoming proceedings that have yet to be scheduled, and then if the Justice Department is allowed to bring him in as a trial witness before a jury, that's because the Justice Department now says Mike Pence was not always just in the executive branch.
Under the Constitution, he was working for the Congress, or he was presiding over Congress as President of the Senate on January 6, and that's how Trump was trying to pressure him to block the election result. Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: To Los Angeles now, an attorney and legal affairs commentator, Areva Martin. Thanks for being with us.
AREVA MARTIN, ATTORNEY AND LEGAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Hi John.
VAUSE: OK. Here's one line which wasn't in the original indictment, but it's in this new slimmed down version. The defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election.
This is some of the differences here, and as CNN reports, prosecutors repeatedly added language describing Trump as a candidate, describing his alleged co-conspirators as individuals who were not government officials during the conspiracies, and who were instead acting in their private capacity.
[01:05:10]
OK, so the Special Counsel appears to be standing by the four original charges while taking into account the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. But has this weakened the case against Trump?
MARTIN: Well, this is such a weird turn of events, John, no one expected this controversial, this unprecedented, shocking determination by the Supreme Court that essentially says Donald Trump can commit a crime, particularly if he tells his justice department that he's going to commit a crime.
In fact, this Supreme Court decision literally gives a play by play handbook to Donald Trump as to how to engage in conduct that otherwise would be illegal, just by informing his justice department, it clearly is going to make it more difficult for the Justice Department to move forward with this case, to build a case that will sustain scrutiny, both at the court level and even assuming he gets past this judge at the trial level, because so many of the elements of the story, of the narrative have had to be removed in order to comply with the Supreme Court determination.
All of the references, there were over 30 references, John, to the Department of Justice, those have all been removed of the unindicted co-conspirators. Conspirator Jeffrey Clark, who was the interim Attorney General at the time of this conspiracy, has been again removed from this superseding indictment. So clearly the Justice Department Herculean task to overcome what the Supreme Court has done by essentially giving Donald Trump a blank check to do or to engage in any conduct that he deems appropriate.
VAUSE: Yes, the Supreme Court decision back in early July was sort of the original sin here, if you like, Trump posted his response to this rework indictment on Truth Social it reads in part, he says, for them to do this, them being the Department of Justice immediately after our Supreme Court victory on immunity and more is shocking. I've also been informed by my attorneys that you're not even allowed to bring cases literally right before an election a director solved a democracy. This is an unprecedented abuse of the criminal justice system, and he goes on and on and on.
Yet, Trump is referring to a Justice Department policy which is called the 60-day rule. Notably, it's not called the 70-day rule, which was yesterday. Trump also claimed this revised indictment had all the same problems of the original when in reality, suggests the opposite of that may have actually been the case here. All those issues maybe have been resolved.
MARTIN: Yes, clearly the Justice Department was trying to comply with the Supreme Court determination that any of the actions that Donald Trump engaged in that were deemed official, that he is immune from any charges with respect to those acts. So that's why we see references to the other attorneys, the other advisors, as private attorneys, as private citizens. That's why we see references to Donald Trump as a candidate versus Trump as president, and that's why all the references and conversations with respect to anyone in the Justice Department have been removed.
The question still remains for Judge Chuktan, is she going to determine that this superseding indictment complies with the parameters that have been outlined by the Supreme Court's decision regarding immunity? We know that pretrial hearings are likely to be scheduled forthwith, and this judge is going to have to make this determination, and ultimately, John, this case is probably headed back to the Supreme Court, because no matter what this judge determines with respect to actions that are private versus official, we can expect and count on Donald Trump's team appealing the decision by the trial judge and taking this case all the way back to the Supreme Court.
VAUSE: And with that in mind, you know, we should make note here that it was the sixth conservative majority on the Supreme Court, with the three liberals opposed and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the three liberal judges, spoke to CBS about her concerns over that ruling by the court's conservative majority in favor of presidential immunity. Here she is.
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KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same.
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VAUSE: And you mentioned there is this expectation that whatever happens, it's got to end up at the Supreme Court in some manner. There's this expectation now that whatever Trump wants, he'll get it from the Supreme Court. And that's we've never been there before. We've ever been in this situation.
MARTIN: It's really a perilous time to be in and to be in this situation where Trump was allowed to, was able to, I should say, to make those appointments, those three conservative appointments, to the U.S. Supreme Court, and even with respect to appointments at the trial court level.
We look at what the judge in Florida did as well, John, throughout the case involving, you know, confidential records that were kept at Trump's personal home, because she determined that the special counsel had no authority under the Constitution, which was against 150 years of precedent as it relates to Special Counsel.
[01:10:12]
So, Trump has stacked the federal judiciary at the trial level, and clearly at the Supreme Court level, with judges that are willing, as you said, to give him pretty much anything that he asked for. And we should expect that if he wins in November, this entire case likely goes away, as is all of the federal cases against him.
VAUSE: Well, past few weeks have been an almost unprecedented problem, free dream run for a presidential campaign. Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz have been under growing pressure to face greater scrutiny, in particular, to sit down and answer some tough questions.
On Thursday, those tough questions will come from CNN's Dana Bash and the first in-depth interview with Harrison walls since Joe Biden dropped out of his bid for a second term of the White House. You can watch that here on CNN, Thursday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. It's happening as the Harris campaign travels through the state of Georgia.
52-year old Israeli Bedouin hostage has been rescued alive from the tunnels beneath Gaza. Farhan Al-Qadi is in stable medical condition after being held for nearly a year. His brother says he was shot in the leg when he was kidnapped October 7. Appears that wound was poorly treated and was operated on without anesthesia.
Al-Qadi spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu by phone thanking him for getting him home, reminding the Israeli prime minister that other hostages still waiting. CNN's Nic Robinson has details.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): The moments after his rescue, the first to be recovered live from a tunnel, 52 year old Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi, a Muslim Bedouin Israeli, surrounded by Israeli Special Forces quickly rushed to a helicopter much thinner than he was when Hamas snatched him as he guarded a packing facility in a kibbutz near Gaza, almost 11 months ago.
His family's agonizing weight almost over, rushing through the hospital to greet his helicopter. Soldiers and medics carefully stretching him towards doctors and the hospital and this family. The look on both brothers faces saying it all the rescued hostage, gaunt but smiling, his elder brother, beaming ear to ear.
KHATEM AL-QADI, BROTHER OF FARHAN AL-QADI (through translator): I can't explain these feelings. It's like being born again. God bless and we say thank you to everyone.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): The IDF describing the troops involved in his rescue as daring and courageous, saying Al-Qadi was found alone without his captors.
REAR ADM. DANIEL HAGARI, ISRAELI MILITARY SPOKESPERSON: We cannot go into many details of this special operation, but I can share that Israeli commandos rescued Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi from an underground tunnel, following accurate intelligence.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): At the hospital, the first readout from doctors, Al-Qadi is doing well.
PROF. SHLOMI CODISH, CEO, SOROKA MEDICAL CENTER: He appears to be in general good condition, but will require another day or two of medical tests to make sure he is still OK.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): In the desert his Bedouin tribe readying for that moment, home fires lit, traditional coffee brewing. The extended family all coming to celebrate what they and he believed might never happen.
ROBERTSON: Did your brother think he was going to survive?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): God wrote him another life. He himself doesn't believe that he is back alive. He told me when I saw him, that my wish was to see you and say hello to you, and then I can die.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): His younger brother telling me Al-Qadi and the family's road back to full recovery could be a long one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It is impossible to erase the memories that he saw there. I personally will not go back to who I was before. I am completely changed.
ROBERTSON (voice-over): As they await Al-Qadi's return, they pray. Grateful they say no blood was spilt in his rescue that the war and the suffering may end and all the hostages come home. Nic Robertson, CNN, Tarabin, Israel.
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VAUSE: To Jerusalem now and Gershon Baskin, Middle East Director of the International Communities Organization. He's also a former hostage negotiator. Thanks for being with us.
GERSHON BASKIN, FORMER HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: My pleasure.
VAUSE: So this was a joint rescue operation by IDF commandos and the Shin Bet Israel's domestic security service and for the Israeli prime minister, it seems all part of his overall grand strategy to get all the hostages home. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): We are working relentlessly to return all of our hostages. We are doing this in two main ways, negotiations and rescue operations. The two of these together require our military presence on the ground and constant military pressure on Hamas. We will continue to act until we return all of them home.
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VAUSE: This is the eighth hostage rescued by the Israeli military, which means one rescue on average, about every 40 days. At that rate, they'll take 4,160 days, or just over 11 years before the remaining 104 hostages actually get home. From the get-go it seems military rescue operations were never a realistic option here. Why is that?
BASKIN: Well, just you gave the numbers right here, there were 110 hostages released in a negotiated deal with Hamas back in November of last year, there remain 108 hostages inside of Gaza. Today, Israel has managed in almost 11 months to return eight hostages plus another nine bodies of hostages, I believe, who were alive in Gaza and got killed after entering Gaza, either by Israeli bombs or by Hamas shooting them and killing them.
This is not the way to bring them home. They are negotiating with Hamas through the Egyptians, Qataris and the United States for a deal, but I must comment that they are negotiating a bad deal, because the deal that's on the table is for a six-week ceasefire, during which time 32 hostages would come home. In other words, another 76 would be left in Gaza for further negotiations.
This is not the way to go. We need a deal that's going to end this war in three weeks, a maximum of three weeks, and bring all the hostages home. And that's the deal that they need to be negotiating now. And my message is to the United States government, to the Qataris and the Egyptians to put that deal forward, because I know that Hamas will agree to it. I know that the people of Israel will agree to it. We only have our prime minister who probably won't agree to it. We need to pressure him to agree to it.
VAUSE: It's worth we'll hear those numbers again. Because of the 250 people kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, our account is about 105 you say, 110 but whatever the number thereabouts, they've been released during the ceasefire. And as you say, compared to the eight rescued by the IDF. I mean, it's quite staggering.
So Netanyahu is being really honest when he talks about every effort being made to bring those hostages home, then that would mean every effort is being made by Israel to get that ceasefire. And as you say, the reality is the prime minister seems determined to keep this war going. And not just the Prime Minister, there are far right members of his cabinet which are also all gung ho for destroying Hamas and continuing this war to the bitter end.
BASKIN: Right. And it has to be understood that there is no ultimate victory against Hamas, because Hamas is an ideology and an idea, and you can't defeat it militarily. The longer Israel stays in Gaza, the Israeli army remains in Gaza, killing people in Gaza every day, the more armed insurgency against Israel we will see, along with those numbers that we talked about, are the numbers of Israeli soldiers who have been killed and are coming home dead every day, or almost every day as well, and more than 7,000 Israeli soldiers who have been wounded since the beginning of the war.
And let's not forget the more than 40,000 Gazans who have been killed and the total destruction of the Gaza Strip. This war is a disaster, and it has to end. We need to put pressure on everyone here to get it over with. We can now have seen widespread disease in Gaza. There's food and water shortages. This is a humanitarian catastrophe that we need to have ended, and there needs to be a ceasefire that will bring all the Israeli hostages home.
VAUSE: With regard to this rescue as it is, there's one very important detail, at least one which the IDF revealed to CNN Jim Sciutto. Listen to this.
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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We are told that he was found alone. Do you believe that his captors had abandoned him?
NADAV SHOSHANI, IDF SPOKESPERSON: Well, that's one of the options that's been looked at, but we are also looking into more information in that area and where we're trying to keep our information to ourselves so we can keep operating.
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VAUSE: What sort of information is he talking about there? What sort of intelligence are they going to get from this -- Mr. Al-Qadi, the hostage who was rescued, and you know, if you stand by himself, what's the secret of military rescue?
BASKIN: Well, you know, there are two different narratives here, two completely different narratives. The Israeli narrative is that they had the intelligence that he was there, and they went into this tunnel and they found him. There's another story on the Israeli side saying that they happen to come to him as they were going through this tunnel looking for Hamas commandos and possibly hostages.
Mr. Al-Qadi said that when they heard the Israeli guards, heard the Israeli soldiers coming, they ran away. On the other side the Hamas narrative is that they released him. My estimation is that there's a bit of truth in everything and a lot of lying and everything, and we really don't know what the story is.
But what's important here is that if Farhan Al-Qadi is an Arab, he's a Bedouin. He speaks Arabic as his native language, and he might actually be the source of a lot more intelligence information than Israel's been able to get from the other Israeli Jewish hostages who don't know Arabic and don't understand what was being said around them.
[01:20:05]
So they said -- he might actually turn up to be a very valuable asset for Israel in terms of knowing a lot more of what's going on, on the Hamas side in tunnels and above ground.
VAUSE: But ideally, yes, a three-week plan to end this war seems like one of the best options here. Gershon Baskin, thanks so much for being with us. So we appreciate your time.
BASKIN: Thank you.
VAUSE: The next round of negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire will be held in Doha after several days of working level discussions in Cairo. White House release (ph) adviser Brett McGurk has reportedly arrived in Qatar's capital, and an Israeli delegation also set to head there for those talks as well.
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JARED MOSKOWITZ, U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRAT: It doesn't appear to me that we've made dramatic progress. It doesn't mean that there aren't negotiations going on and that we're not getting closer, right? But we just don't know how close. It's not clear to anybody whether Sinwar is interested in a deal at all, and it doesn't appear to me that pressure has worked, whether it's international pressure or local pressure. In fact, it just appears to me all the pressure continues to be on Israel.
Sinwar is a single individual who's now the both political and military head of Hamas who can end this war and the suffering of the Palestinian people. Get to a ceasefire and return the hostages. It's all up to him. This idea that it's up to Israel is just not accurate.
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VAUSE: One of the sticking point appears to be a demand by Hamas at any agreement, including permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Still to come here on CNN, Ukraine's president, a man with a plan, and he's selling that plan to win the war against Russia as he heads to the White House.
Also, Moscow lashing out after the arrest of Telegram's founder calling a plan to delete messages on the app utterly stupid.
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VAUSE: Another delay for the Polaris Dawn mission. SpaceX says bad weather at the splashdown point of the coast of Florida means liftoff will be on hold for at least the next two days. The mission will carry a four-person team to the highest altitude of any crewed spaceflight since the Apollo program ended more than 50 years ago. That is when it actually gets started. Two crew members will attempt the first ever spacewalk by private citizens. Helium leak had postponed the initial launch.
It seems that Ukrainian incursion into Russia may just be the start of a much larger plan by the Ukrainian president to try and end the war in Russia, and he's going to need the help to make that happen. And so President Zelenskyy discussing his plans at a news conference on Tuesday, added that he'll be traveling to the United Nations General Assembly in the coming weeks to speak with U.S. President Joe Biden, who says it's crucial to his multi step plan.
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ZELENSKYY (through translator): One part of the plan that is already performed is Kursk Region.
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The second part is Ukraine's strategic place in the world's security infrastructure. The third part is a pressure package, a powerful package to force Russia to end the war diplomatically. The fourth part is economic.
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VAUSE: And according to the Ukraine president, defense systems repelled at least 230 Russian airstrikes Monday, part of yet another massive attack on Ukraine's power grid. Zelenskyy has vowed Ukraine will respond to those attacks and others saying, quote, crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has more.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For the second day in a row, Ukrainians are enduring a massive air assault from Russia. President Zelenskyy says the country's air force has been able to repel more than 230 Russian attacks. Still, drones and missiles are getting through across the country, wreaking havoc, causing damage to the country's power infrastructure. That's the target here for Russia, the country's civilian infrastructure.
Still, this does begin to shift the narrative a bit, but still, there is a mixed battlefield picture here. Ukrainians are continuing to advance into Russian territory. In Kursk claiming yet more Russian settlements are under their control, and President Zelenskyy was quick to point this out. Take a listen.
ZELENSKYY (through translator): I think it has started to show Russian society that it is more important for Putin to capture a city in Ukraine that he has never heard of, just to satisfy his ambitions than to defend his territories.
ABDELAZIZ: You have President Zelenskyy there sort of poking fun at President Putin for failing to defend Kursk in his words, but at the same time acknowledging that there are Russian advances in eastern Ukraine towards Pokrovsk, a strategic city that Russian troops are advancing towards, inch by inch, as families flee, as families evacuate from that area. President Zelenskyy now appealing for help from the west. He says he wants restrictions lifted on weapons.
There's two things that he's requesting right now. First, he wants to be able to use long range missiles given to him by NATO in the US. He wants to use those long range missiles even further and deeper. He wants to hit inside Russian territory. Secondly, he is asking to use the air defense capabilities he's been given right up close to Russian airspace.
Now, of course, Western officials will be concerned that this could potentially aggravate tensions, could escalate the conflict, but President Zelenskyy says this is the only option, and he will keep asking his allies for the green light. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.
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VAUSE: More now on the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. French officials say he was detained Sunday in Paris as part of a broad criminal investigation involving serious abuse of the app. But many in Russia say it's an attack on them. CNN's Fred Pleitgen explains.
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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Russia's state controlled TV up in arms, labeling the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov as a direct attack against Moscow.
NIKOLAI VAVILOV, RUSSIAN TV SHOW GUEST (through translator): I don't think it was an arrest. It was kidnapping, basically a hostage taking, direct political and economic aggression against Russia.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Pavel Durov remains in French custody. This video posted on Telegram purporting to show Durov and some associates, the caption saying they were having breakfast in Azerbaijan before flying to Paris.
French prosecutors say Durov is the subject of a cyber crimes investigation and alleging Telegram was complicit in, among other things, illicit transactions spreading child pornography and fraud by failing to moderate the content shared on the platform.
Telegram says Durov has nothing to hide, but Russia's Foreign Minister now insinuating that the arrest may be politically motivated, even though France's President denied politics were involved.
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Apparently someone is hoping to somehow gain access to encryption codes. Now this has already been proven by the actions of the French that Telegram is a truly reliable and popular network.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): The 39-year old Durov, often referred to as the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the world's most well-known social media moguls, cultivating a playboy like image, often posting shirtless pictures of himself on social media and even claiming he's fathered more than 100 children.
He's the co-founder, not just of Telegram used by hundreds of millions worldwide, but also a Russian platform similar to Facebook, called the VKontakte. Durov rejects any regulation and moderation on his platforms, as he told CNN in an interview in 2015.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And are you aware that ISIS extremists, terrorists, also use Telegram?
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PAVEL DUROV, CEO, TELGRAM: I heard of that. Yes. We are not happy about that. But I guess this kind of people use lots of encrypted technology.
PLEITGEN: While there have been questions about possible links between Durov and the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin's spokesman denied the two recently met when both were in Azerbaijan.
Still pro-Kremlin propagandists are voicing their support for Durov like this rapper who goes by the name Shaman.
SHAMAN, RUSSIAN SINGER (through translator): It is only in Russian that you can breathe freely and easily. Come back home. Here you always remembered, waited for and loved.
PLEITGEN: Fred Pleitgen, CNN -- Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets caving to White House -- White House pressure to pull some COVID-19 content during the pandemic.
In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, he says, quote, "In 2021 senior officials from the Biden administration repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire. And expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree."
The White House responded saying, at the time the administration was urging the company to be responsible. In a statement of their own, quote, "We believe tech companies should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people while making independent choices about the information they present.
Still to come, seven years ago, the world watched and did nothing as Myanmar's military waged a genocide against the Rohingya minority. There are new fears now that history may be repeating there.
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VAUSE: Welcome back everyone. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
According to the United Nations, seven years ago, Myanmar's military began a campaign of genocide against the Rohingya minority. Hundreds of thousands fled to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017, escaping that brutal crackdown. But now thousands who remain behind are facing real fears of ethnic
cleansing. New reports warn a rebel group is subjecting the minority community to another violent crackdown with women and children among those being killed.
CNN's Anna Coren reports now from Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh where nearly a million Rohingya refugees are now living in deplorable and atrocious conditions. A warning: her story contains some graphic images.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From a hut made of bamboo and tarpaulins, sits a woman in insufferable pain. Across her lap lays her four-year-old daughter.
[01:34:51]
COREN: As she pulls at her mother's headscarf, 22-year-old Hamida (ph) recounts the trauma she says she endured only weeks ago.
"I have no idea how many soldiers entered my home but they beat me, held me down, and raped me. I kept screaming and my husband ran in. They tied him up and made him watch as more soldiers raped me. Then one of them slit his throat with a big sharp knife."
Yet the horror was just beginning, as hundreds of her fellow Rohingya in Rakhine State, Western Myanmar were massacred.
"Oh, my father, oh, my brother, why are there so many dead bodies," cries the man filming.
Myanmar's military junta and the rebel Arakan army have been waging a bloody battle in Rakhine State as part of the country's ongoing civil war.
And while the Rohingya, a Muslim minority denied citizenship in a Buddhist majority country, have got caught in the crossfire, what's been unfolding bears all the hallmarks of an even darker time.
Back in 2017, the Rohingya were targeted in what U.N. experts labelled genocide. More than 10,000 were killed, while over 700,000 fled into neighboring Bangladesh.
The military carried out those atrocities, but this time, survivors say the ethnic Arakan army is to blame for the targeted attacks against civilians, a claim its leadership denies.
MUJIBUR RAHMAN, ROHINGYA MASSACRE SURVIVOR (through translator): The Arakan army were killing everyone they could find. They slaughtered my wife, children, and my elderly mother. I heard their screams before they were beheaded. I have no one left.
COREN: As thousands of Rohingya fled the township of Maungdaw to the Naf River, the border to Bangladesh, eyewitnesses say the 5th of August was one of the deadliest attacks. ABDUL BASHAR, ROHINGYA MASSACRE SURVIVOR (through translator): When we reached the border fence, we saw a large bomb fall on a group of people, killing many, including my son, sister, and her baby.
There were so many bombs falling, so many dead bodies, it felt like the end of the world.
COREN: Witnesses say more than 200 people were killed on the riverbank that day.
This woman in total shock sits among the dead.
The U.N. human rights chief has condemned the attacks, claiming that despite the world saying never again, he fears we are witnessing a repeat of the atrocities seven years ago.
The only way for these people to get to Bangladesh is to beg or pay a broker hundreds of dollars for safe passage. But crossing the three- kilometer stretch of water on a fishing boat isn't without risk.
Multiple drownings have occurred in recent weeks. While Bangladesh's border security tries to prevent more Rohingya from coming in.
With reports a boat is arriving, we head to the shore. A full moon lighting up the water. The Coast Guard appears. The location is scrapped. But the sounds of what the Rohingya are continuing to flee can be heard in those pre-dawn hours.
For the past few weeks, boat after boat filled with Rohingya have made the dangerous journey across the Naf River. It's a risk they're willing to take to escape the atrocities in Myanmar.
But here in Bangladesh, if they're caught, they'll be sent back to where they fled from, confirming their status as the world's most unwanted people.
If successful in evading authorities, this is where they end up, Cox's Bazar, the site of the world's largest refugee camp, home to around 1 million Rohingya. It has become a sanctuary for a persecuted people, but these huts in the mud are not permanent homes.
Bangladesh's new interim chief, Muhammad Yunus, has promised to continue supporting the Rohingya in his country, but has appealed for the fighting to end so they can return to their homeland with safety and dignity.
[01:39:44]
COREN: For these four children, there is no going back. Their parents were killed in front of them. And if it wasn't for their grandmother, who grabbed the six-month-old baby from his dead mother's arms guiding them to safety, she says they all would have died.
"Oh, God," she cries. "Sadness will not go from our lives."
Anna Coren, CNN -- Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: No let up in protests across Venezuela after last month's disputed presidential election, which saw strongman Nicolas Maduro claimed a third term in power.
The opposition say they won the election and is now calling for worldwide rallies in the coming hours to press for recognition of their although victory which they say was stolen by Maduro.
As CNN's Stefano Pozzebon reports, many protesters have also fled the country amid fears of a government crackdown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN JOURNALIST: A month ago we met Victor Medina campaigning for freedom in Venezuela.
He was urging people to vote for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who was challenging authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro at the polls.
But since then, a lot has changed.
Venezuelan electoral authorities declaring Maduro the winner of that election without showing any proof.
And the government detaining more than 2,000 people in a ferocious crackdown on dissent. Medina is now a migrant in Colombia.
"I never wanted to leave these way," he tells me. "Fleeing my homeland as if I was a criminal."
His only crime he says was serving as an electoral witness for Gonzalez's campaign.
While Maduro claims victory, the opposition has published more than 20,000 voting tallies that show that Gonzalez won the election collected by volunteers like Medina, who took his certificate all the way to Bogota.
Do you know that somebody from the opposition told me that these documents have become like kryptonite in Venezuela because the government is hunting down everybody who was involved with the collection of the tallies.
Electoral experts told CNN the results published by the opposition match mathematically and statistically and several countries, including the United States, have already recognized Gonzalez as the legitimate winner.
Medina is not alone other dissidents have left Venezuela in recent weeks in much more delicate circumstances.
Why does this interview need to remain anonymous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After they put out an arrest order for me and I left, the police took my wife and my daughter to make me surrender. We are safe now but my family remains in Venezuela. And I'm worried for them.
CNN spoke with several opposition activists who are now in Colombia, Ecuador, and the United States.
[01:44:47]
POZZEBON: Fearing retaliation against their loved ones, most asked for their identity to remain hidden while Venezuelan authorities did not respond to CNN's questions surrounding these cases.
Before the election, one poll suggested up to a third of Venezuelans would consider migrating if Maduro stayed in power, adding further pressure to governments already struggling to contain the migrant flows to the U.S. southern border.
Secretary for Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas was in Colombia on Monday, pledging resources to address migration.
ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: regional challenges require regional solutions.
POZZEBON: Medina would rather be part of the solution, but his (INAUDIBLE) is clear.
"I thought these was the year we would welcome our loved ones back to Venezuela. I feel instead, we will meet together abroad," he says.
Stefano Pozzebon CNN -- Bogota.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The latest bad news on the climate crisis refers to sea levels which are rising much faster than expected, up to three times faster.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the oceans as overflowing, posing an extraordinary risk to Pacific islands.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL: These reports confirm that the relative sea levels in the southwestern Pacific have risen even more than the global average in some locations by more than double the global increase in the past 30 years.
Ocean temperatures are increasing at up to three times the rate worldwide. And Pacific islands are uniquely exposed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: 90 percent of Pacific islanders live within five kilometers of the coast and while the U.N. report points out sea levels will continue to rise another 15 centimeters by 2050, that is if the world changes, nothing to avert further disaster.
Extreme weather causing deadly floods in two of Africa's largest nations. In Nigeria at least 170 people have been killed, more than 200,000 displaced after weeks of torrential rain and flooding.
And in war-torn Sudan, the death toll from flash floods and a burst dam has now reached 130. The U.N. warns that number could rise significantly as more victims are recovered.
The waters destroyed thousands of homes in several provinces displacing at least 30,000 families.
Satellite images show the Arbaat Dam before it collapsed and after. That dam supplied fresh water to port Sudan. Now, it's empty. The U.N. says the humanitarian situation in that city can only get worse.
African start-ups have raised around at $23 billion over the last decade and clean tech is getting a larger share of investor attention and investment.
In this edition of "Inside Africa", SunCulture, a solar-powered irrigation company based out of Kenya, has raised $35 million this year to help sell, install, and finance irrigation for small farms across Africa.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSHUA MURIMA, BRITER BRIDGES: There's no running away from the fact that agriculture is somewhat the backbone of the African continent. There's been opportunities, especially for digital innovators to operate within this space.
SAMIR IBRAHIM, CEO/CO-FOUNDER, SUNCULTURE: The problem we're trying to solve is that smallholder farmers in Africa are incredibly unproductive. When you look at smallholder farmers around the world, they use irrigation to increase the yields and to keep animals.
But because both the water pumps and the fuel for water pumps in Africa are too expensive, of the 700 million people living in smallholder farming households, only 4 percent irrigate.
The business right now is we sell and install and we fight solar irrigation systems. So as part of the package, the farmers getting a solar panel electronics, a water pump, irrigation systems. They're getting insulation, they're getting training, they're going ongoing after-sales support and now we're starting to sell other products like soil tests and insurance.
When we started our business, the cheapest way to do what we're doing was $25,000 per farmer. We're selling things that farmers pay $350 and then paying us the monthly installments of $12 o $13 to totally transform their lives, to totally increase their incomes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My farm is slightly more than half an acre. I have over 30 vegetables, mostly traditional vegetables. But since I started using a solar pump the impact has been so massive.
I'm able to pump the water more than 6 hours per day. I'm able to water without thinking how the cost will be.
Production has increased more than four times. The production goes up.
IBRAHIM: Imagine a world in which a smallholder farmer on their phone is seeing how much their device is being used. They're getting advice on when to irrigate.
[01:49:51]
IBRAHIM: They're getting a soil test sent to them. They can open their soil test. They can then buy inputs that the soil test recommends. They can buy insurance products that protects their family, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think that's a very, very near future for smallholder farmers and it's something we're very proud to be building with them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: On the brink of making history with only Chinese bureaucracy standing in the way. When we come back, the 18-year-old mountain climber, a quest for the record books if only China would issue a permit.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: It was a day on the water which turned into a dangerous encounter for two fisherman off Australia's Sunshine Coast. A huge, great white shark stalked their small boat and then took a big bite.
Details from 9News reporter Cam Inglis.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAM INGLIS, 9NEWS REPORTER: Ten kilometers off the Sunshine Coast, a five-meter great white shark circles underneath the boat, smaller than itself. When suddenly it swam straight towards Jayden Grace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa. (EXPLETIVE DELETED). It just bit my boat. It just bit my boat.
INGLIS: It doesn't end there as the predator continues to stalk them from below.
JAYDEN GRACE, FISHERMAN: It just circles the boat for probably like half an hour to an hour. The whole time we fished there. It's a little bit worried at first, but yes it was it was pretty crazy.
INGLIS: The frightening encounter happened midday, Saturday. Jayden and his friend were fishing for snapper between Caloundra and Mooloolaba (ph) when they got a sinking feeling, they weren't alone.
GRACE: Seeing a big black shadow at the front of the boat, seriously thought it was a baby whale at first saw but there was a -- a monster great white.
INGLIS: Something he'd never seen in years of fishing, but his attempt to get a better camera shot placed them in peril.
GRACE: I threw the GoPro in the water, and I was pulling it and yes, it must have spotted it and just come straight -- straight towards us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just the slow motion of the jaws actually opening and like going to attack the side of the boat was like crazy.
INGLIS: While some fishermen are known to exaggerate the size of their catch.
GRACE: It's going to be a great story to tell. That's for sure.
INGLIS: Jayden has the scars to prove it.
GRACE: Well, that's what the great white did to my boat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
INGLIS: Cam Inglis, 9News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: He bit the boat.
A teenager from Nepal is charting a path to history. He looks to conquer the last of the world's tallest summits. This feat is considered the pinnacle of mountaineering and would place the 18-year- old in rarefied air.
And CNN's Lynda Kincaid has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LYNDA KINKADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Step-by-step this teenager is on his way to making history.
18-year-old Nima Rinji Sherpa is setting his sights on the highest peaks in the world. After reaching 13, he's aiming to become the youngest person to climb all the 14 mountains above 8,000 meters.
Even though he comes from a community of mountaineers, this is still a big deal.
NIMA RINJI SHERPA, MOUNTAINEER: This is a very big advantage for the Sherpa community and even for me and for everyone. because before this, you cannot -- you can't imagine a teenager doing the 14 peaks, you know.
[01:54:43]
KINKADE: Sherpas are an ethnic group native to the valleys around Mount Everest. And they're often guides for mountaineers in the Himalayas. They carry large loads like equipment and food, fixing letters (ph), and ropes along the way, always a dangerous feat.
And climbing such incredible heights also brings great risks. Avalanches, exposure, and high-altitude sickness can easily take over and can be the difference between a successful summit and never reaching the peak.
But Nima Rinji Sherpa says his mental state is what keeps him focused and calm.
SHERPA: I've kind of convinced myself, you know, like to be normally in the mountain. Like for example when I see avalanche or bad weather or when there is an accident in the mountain I'm not in a hurry. I don't get like nervous or something like that.
KINKADE: Despite growing up in a family of mountaineers, Sherpa never wanted to follow in their footsteps until just two years ago. His father, owner of Nepal's largest mountain expedition company says, for years he's been preparing his son for a moment like this.
TASHI LAKPA SHERPA, FOUNDER, SEVEN SUMMITS TREKS: He's very fit because physically and mentally you should be very good (INAUDIBLE) to do the big mountain climbing.
KINKADE: Only about 40 people have reached all 14 peaks of what they call the 8,000-ers (ph).
They're all in the Himalayan and Karakorum ranges spanning China, Pakistan, Nepal, and India.
As the youngest climber not only has Sherpa broken multiple records, his expeditions have taught him a lot.
SHERPA: I've learned so much things about nature and human body, human psychology, meeting new people, nature and like everything in the world that I learned from the mountains.
KINKADE: With his sights set on one last mountain, Shishapangama in Tibet, he's hoping to inspire others and develop mountaineering into a professional sport.
Whether he is on the ground or on top of the world, Sherpa is set on breaking more barriers
Lynda Kinkade, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thank you for watching. I'm John Vause.
Please stay with us. CNN NEWSROOM continues with my friend and colleague Rosemary Church after a very short break.
See you right back here tomorrow.
[01:57:01]
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