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Connect the World
Air Raid Sirens in Israel Warn of Possible Rocket Fire; CNN Speaks to Netanyahu Adviser Mark Regev; Officials: 28 Palestinians, Two Israelis Killed in Airstrikes; Israel: Palestinian Militants Fire Hundreds of Rockets; World Trade Organization Considering Waiving Vaccine Patents; Brit Award Change Rules Thanks to Singer Rina Sawayama. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired May 11, 2021 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Abu Dhabi. This is "Connect the World" with Becky Anderson.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: Welcome back to the program. We begin with tensions growing by the hour in the Middle East as unrest on
the ground is now turned to flare ups in the sky. Israel says Palestinian militants enraged by what they call "Israeli Aggression" in Jerusalem have
logged hundreds of rockets into the country. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There we go. That's Hadas getting ready for shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Air raid sirens forcing people including CNN's Hadas Gold to run from the cover, they are safe and we will hear from Hadas in just a moment.
The Israeli military is firing back the IDF says it has launched more than 150 airstrikes on targets in Gaza, that the violence has killed to Israelis
and 28 Palestinians 10 of them children. This is the funeral procession for an 11 year old Palestinian boy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is characterizing this as a struggle for the very heart of Jerusalem clearly, the violence getting
bigger than that. I want to bring in Mr. Netanyahu's Senior Adviser Mark Regev at this point a lot of tension Mark over the past couple of weeks
more so overnight. Israel's Prime Minister says Hamas' rocket attacks on Jerusalem, "Crossed a red line". And he vows to respond with great force he
says. What will that response look like?
MARK REGEV, SENIOR ADVISOR TO ISRAELI PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, as you know, exactly 24 hours ago, we had a barrage of rockets, a volley of
rockets on Jerusalem and across the south. And since then, we've had some 500 rockets from Gaza, launched by the terrorists there by Hamas and
Islamic Jihad attacking our civilian population.
And this is something that I don't think any country would stand for no democracy would see its civil citizens targeted the way that ours are being
targeted now. In my government, the Government of Israel is acting to protect our civilian population and to restore calm and security.
ANDERSON: How do you envisage a de-escalation at this point?
REGEV: Well, we did everything we could before the outbreak of violence to de escalate. In fact, the government took some very difficult decisions
yesterday in the morning, precisely designed to reduce tensions. I mean, we took a difficult decision of forbidding Jews to go to the Temple Mount on
Jerusalem Day, which is not something that we wanted to do.
But we felt that we needed to do something to try to try to calm things down. We took a decision to reroute them - the Jerusalem Day Parade, so is
also to try to reduce tensions. But unfortunately, despite those efforts, the people in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, they were just looking for an
escalation.
They were looking for an excuse. They orchestrated the violence here in Jerusalem, and then used that as an excuse to launch rockets against
Israel. We can't stand for that. And we now have to deal with the threat that they pose and Hamas has to pay a price when they last night attack
Jerusalem, they crossed the red line, and they have to understand the folly of their decision.
ANDERSON: Videos surfacing online showing Israeli police firing tear gas and stun grenades at worshipers inside Al Aqsa Mosque. Palestinians who
were not breaking the law or causing any violence so why were they being attacked?
REGEV: Becky every year in Ramadan, hundreds and thousands of Muslim worshippers come to the Al Aqsa Mosque and they pray peacefully and we
welcome that. We facilitate that. In fact, we're very proud of the fact that since 1967, since we reunited the city that all religious communities
freely practice their faith that religious freedom is enshrined in the way Israel works and that the holy sites of all faiths are protected.
What happened this year however was that a group of extremists decided not to peacefully pray, but a group of extremists decided to orchestrate
violence from the Mosque and they brought with them rocks and flares and other forms of explosives. And they were deliberately looking for violence.
We've got no problem with worshipers, but we've got a problem with rioters.
ANDERSON: I just want to emphasize that the videos surfacing online show Israeli police firing tear gas and stun grenades at peaceful worshipers
inside the Al Aqsa Mosque. So I do put it to you again. Palestinians who were not breaking the law or causing any violence were being attacked by
Israeli soldiers why?
[11:05:00]
REGEV: Can I suggest that those videos have been edited and they don't show what happened immediately beforehand. And I can tell you in Israel, we
thoroughly respect the holy sites of all faiths. We wouldn't send our police onto the Temple Mount and unless there was a severe provocation,
unless there was a threat to life.
We understand the importance of the Mosque for the global Muslim community. We respect that. The Mosque is run independently by - authorities, the
religious Muslim authorities, that's the way it is. That's the way it's going to be. Israel will scrupulously uphold the status quo.
But just as you've had extremists, unfortunately, doing violent takeovers of mosques in other countries in the Gulf as well, as you know, Becky, we
couldn't stand for it here just as no one would stand for it anywhere.
ANDERSON: Well, Regev one of the drivers behind the serious escalation in tensions in Jerusalem in recent weeks has been the threat of eviction
facing Palestinian families from homes in an East Jerusalem neighborhood called Sheik Jarrah.
In a joint statement, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian territories and the UAE, the Special Rapporteur on - housing
together, saying, and I quote here. The immediate source of the current tensions in East Jerusalem are the actions of Israeli settler organizations
whose stated aim is to turn Palestinian neighborhoods into Jewish neighborhoods that from two Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights, your
response?
REGEV: Well, first of all, as you know, Israel and the United States and other Western democracies have had problems with the UN Human Rights
Council. We pointed it out for its bias and having an anti Israel agenda. But let's deal now with the substance of these claims.
That part of Jerusalem the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood before 1948 there were Jews living there together with Arabs, they were forcibly evicted in the
1948 War. Now, there are Jews who claim property in that neighborhood because they say they were forcefully evicted 70 some years ago.
Now, the courts are looking at the relevant evidence the courts will decide who that property belongs to? Who has the right possession? The Israeli
government is not part of this legal process. The Israeli Government is a bystander here.
The courts will have to decide who has position it's not something that the Israeli government is in any way involved in this case.
ANDERSON: Well that hearing postponed on Monday. I just want you to have a listen to what one Sheik Jarrah resident had to say about what is happening
there and how he believes calling it eviction does not accurately portray his experience, have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOHAMMED EL-KURD, FAMILY FACING EVICTION: It's not really an eviction, its forced ethnic displacement to be accurate because an eviction implies legal
authority while the Israeli occupation has no legitimate jurisdiction over the eastern parts of occupied Jerusalem under international law. It also
implies the presence of a landlord and certainly these Israeli settlers have not built our homes.
They're not our landlords. They don't want our land. And thirdly, eviction does not imply the hundreds and hundreds of heavily armed police and army
and settlers colluding, blowing up your doors, throwing your children from your windows and using brute force to throw you out in the street and
assaulting in a rescue should you resist.
It doesn't imply the grenades it doesn't employ the rubber coated bullets. It's not an eviction. According to the UN and countless politicians and
human rights organizations, it could amount war crimes. Actually, the situation is pretty tense. I can tell you and we're very scared of losing
our home - organizations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: The Israeli Foreign Ministry as well as other Israeli politicians have portrayed the situation there as "A real estate dispute". Now
Palestinians would argue that the violence taking place at present is a result of years of oppression and injustice against Palestinians at the
hand of - the hands of the Israeli government and Israeli police the occupied versus the occupier, your response.
REGEV: So Israel united Jerusalem in 1967. And I think you've seen Jerusalem develop amazingly since then the population has grown both the
Jewish and the Arab population. The city is more prosperous than it ever was. The city is more diverse than it ever was.
Jerusalem is an amazing city. And those people who want to re divide the city you want to put an ugly wall sundown somewhere down the middle of the
city. That's just not going to happen. It's not good for peace. It's not good for Jerusalemites.
We have to find another way that Israelis and Palestinians can learn to live together. Jerusalem must remain united. I don't think anyone who loves
the city wants to see it divided again.
ANDERSON: Mark Regev, thank you for joining us. The Palestinian view of this new deadly outbreak of Middle East violence is next.
[11:10:00]
ANDERSON: I'll talk to a human rights attorney who says we are fighting with tears streaming across our faces that are coming up. Well, anti Israel
protests happening around the region. Protesters in Istanbul stomping on the Israeli flag they're among the thousands demonstrating around Turkey
these protests happening despite a strict Coronavirus lockdown of course.
Let me get you the international reaction shortly but I want to get you back to Ashkelon in Israel now where rockets fired from Gaza have been
targeting this area. CNN's Hadas Gold has been there herself all day. She has been in and out of the bomb shelters and she joins us now Hadas?
HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes Becky. I'm standing in front of this building that received a very significant rocket attack. Early this morning
I'll have our cameraman pan up. So just so you can get a sense of the damage to this building. We have been here all morning long. We have been
having air raid sirens on and off that have sent us scurrying into the bomb shelters.
We've also in the last few hours been hearing a lot of activity in the skies airplanes flying by. We can hear booms explosions in the distance.
They may be airstrikes on Gaza, which is just over 10 kilometers away from where we are, but we can hear them quite clearly.
And what we've been experiencing is we'll hear these airplanes flying overhead we may hear a few booms and explosions. And then a few minutes
later the air raid sirens go off. So any minute now we may hear in air raid siren we may have to go back into the spam shelter and that's what these
residents have been dealing with all day.
This has been a barrage of rockets all day long. More than 500 according to the military have been launched from Gaza towards Israel. Two people here
in Ashkelon have died as a result of rockets according to the emergency services here, at least 16 have an injured including about six in this
building behind me from this attack from this morning.
The IDF says that they have struck more than 150 targets in Gaza. And now we're hearing from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza that 28
Palestinians have been killed in strikes, including nine children, the Israeli Military say they take any sort of possibility of civilian
casualties very seriously.
They say they are looking into the incidents, especially the one with especially any sort of incident where children were killed. They are noting
though that amongst the rockets we just heard another boom far in the distance that amongst the rockets, they said a third of them are falling
short.
And within Gaza IDF has also said that they recently killed three Islamic Jihad fighters. They released a video of that as well. Netanyahu also spoke
recently in a video that he posted online saying that Hamas will in a way they didn't anticipate.
And as you noted, the Gaza militants are specifically citing the tensions in Jerusalem as a reason for this barrage of rockets. Specifically, what's
been happening at the Al Aqsa Compound where we've seen hundreds more than 501 Palestinians injured in those classes Israeli police as well as the
situation in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood in the Palestinian families?
Their tensions have also been rising across the country across the region where we've also seen protests in other countries; there was a situation
where an Israeli or an Arab Israeli man was killed. He was apparently shot by an Israeli Jewish man when the Jewish man was being - when rocks were
being thrown at the Jewish man, according to police.
Tensions are incredibly high here. And it's just I've been speaking to the residents here in this building. And they say that while living in Southern
Israel living near Gaza, on both sides, you kind of get used to tensions to rockets they say just the amount of activity today that is unusual.
We're hearing now a series of explosions of booms essentially in the distance not sure what they are. If we have the video or if we have a live
stream of what's happening going on in Gaza perhaps you can see some activity.
But like I've been saying, we've been hearing these airplanes overhead we'll hear some booms and then usually a few minutes later, we hear the
response which may be rockets fire towards here. We hear the airway sirens that send us scurrying back into the bomb shelter.
I have lost count Becky of the number of times we have heard the air raid sirens here and the number of rockets we have heard here.
ANDERSON: Hadas Gold is in Ashkelon. Well, Hadas mentioning the protests around the region. Let's get more on those anti Israel protests that are
happening in some places around this region of the Middle East.
Well, protesters in Istanbul stomping on the Israeli flag there among the thousands demonstrating around Turkey these protests happening despite a
strict Coronavirus lockdown. And these are scenes from Jordan protesters in Amman waving Palestinian flags most of Jordan's' 10 million citizens are of
Palestinian origin.
[11:15:00]
ANDERSON: Demonstrators also marched through the streets of Beirut in Lebanon, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and we will
do more on this story for you as we move through the hour Noura Erakat joining me next with the Palestinian perspective. You are watching "Connect
the World", there is an awful lot going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: --seen the devastation of his village. Yet his fear is no longer death. It's the COVID will destroy his family?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Dying with COVID in rural India. Sam Kiley reports on the devastating scenes as one village gets overwhelmed by COVID-19. Plus,
shortage supplies and inequities between rich and poor countries are putting the Covax Vaccine Sharing Scheme in jeopardy. I'll speak to Gian
Gandhi, the UNICEF Coordinator for Covax Vaccine supplies.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: 28 Palestinians and two Israelis reported dead in the second day of rocket attacks from Gaza and Israeli airstrikes. Israel Defense Forces
released this video of the strike it says killed three Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza and claims about a dozen other militants have died in
these strikes. Palestinians say 10 children among those killed in Gaza.
My next guest says the world has become desensitized to the violence in Gaza. Noura Erakat is a Human Rights Attorney, Professor and Author of the
book "Justice for some Law and the Question of Palestine" she is highly critical of Israel's actions calling the attacks in Gaza crude colonial
violence and Noura Erakat joining me now via Skype from just outside of Washington.
And you are a Palestinian and I just wanted to before we talk about specifically what is going on the ground to describe just what it feels
like looking from the outside in as it were?
NOURA ERAKAT, HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Thank you so much, Becky. I appreciate centering that question and what it feels like to be a Palestinian because
so much of what's at stake is actually our dehumanization and the expendability of our lives livelihoods that our deaths become numbers
rather than vanish dreams and mourning families.
As I'm watching this, I'm having an intense emotion. I was in Jerusalem in 2000 at the start of what's known as the Second Palestinian Intifada. I was
there when one of the first of the five people killed on September 21, 2000 was one of my neighbors - I remember vividly his toddler daughter beating
on a picture of him calling for her Baba.
I'm also then reminded immediately of my cousin who was murdered last summer at a checkpoint separating two Palestinian cities - I want to lift
up his name because he remains in captivity in an Israeli refrigerator at Tel Aviv University held as hostage and could not allowing his family, my
family to mourn him with dignity.
[11:20:00]
ERAKAT: I'm now bracing myself because on the one hand, I am invigorated by what is a Palestinian uprising against this colonial rule, and
simultaneously bracing me because I understand and see that Palestinian death has become an index for Israeli vulnerability because of the thorough
dehumanization of our lives.
ANDERSON: What we are witnessing today and overnight is this uptick in - I don't want to call it tit for tat strikes from Gaza, and then on the back
end from Israel, because tit for tat just dismisses the enormity of what is going on?
But this has come off the back of recent violence in Jerusalem. And in a recent op-ed, you said and I quote, Sheik Jarrah is the latest flashpoint
of Israel's expansionist project. The threats of eviction are part of what Palestinians describe as their ongoing Nakba because the removal and forced
exile of 80 percent of historic Palestine native population between 1947 and 1949 was not a singular event.
We spoke to Mark Regev, earlier on the Foreign Ministry of course, describing what is going on is in Sheik Jarrah as a real estate issue.
Elaborate, if you will, on what you wrote in that op-ed?
ERAKAT: Absolutely. I Co-Authored that op-ed Mariam Barghouti, a freelance journalist and researcher in Palestine, who is in the West Bank and because
of she's Palestinian in the West Bank, but because of Israel's violent juridical demarcations, and its settler colonial plans of dividing
Palestinians, and eliminating them as a people, she cannot travel to Jerusalem and instead, like me is watching it from afar despite her
proximity.
I heard the interview with Mark Regev, I had a lot to say to him, especially as he was sharing propaganda that Jerusalem has been the home to
what he described as Arabs he should have described as Palestinians, despite the fact that the Israeli government has been explicit about
removing Palestinians.
And it's Jerusalem's master plan of 2000. It says explicitly, that it wants to maintain a demographic majority of Jews up 70 percent to 30 percent and
needs to do that because natural population growth of Palestinians will become 60 to 40. And so they have pursued a policy of removal through state
annexation, through forced evictions through retroactive taxes through the declaration of land as state parks that are now off limits to Palestinians.
14,000 Palestinians have had their residency permits revoked since 1967, without due process, when Israel annexed Jerusalem and full daylight in
contravention of international condemnation in 1967. It expanded Jerusalem's municipal boundaries by 10 times and annexed some 17,000
additional West Bank acres of West Bank land.
Since then, the Israeli government has built some 49,000 housing units for Jewish Zionist in Jerusalem, but not a single one for Palestinians who
constitute a third of the city's population. Nothing, nothing here speaks of equality. This is a settler colonial campaign to remove native
Palestinians and to replace them with Jewish Zionist settlers in their place.
Every Palestinian removed today from their home is not suffering from a real estate dispute, but faces their life now as a refugee for the rest of
their life.
ANDERSON: The rockets that have been fired by Hamas from Gaza, they say are in response to what is going on in Sheik Jarrah and in response to the
violence they say that Israel is waged against worshippers at the Al Aqsa Mosque over the past couple of days, over the Middle East weekend. Do you
support that response by Hamas?
This is an organization that many will say is, is fully avoid where otherwise a wider Palestinian leadership might be, it's no see that there
has been a vacuum in Palestinian leadership.
[11:25:00]
ANDERSON: The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is temporarily postponed the elections when he says that that actually suits him. So I do want to
put it to you, do you support Hamas's response and what all Palestinian leadership at this point?
ERAKAT: Let me just say that it really doesn't matter whether or not I support it. And unfortunately, I think that the focus on Hamas rockets,
which have been an effective Israel has protected itself with the Iron Dome system, Hamas has crude rocket fire that does not have the ability to
target is IPSO facto reckless, and indicates the deep asymmetry in this conflict, which we should emphasize, which is a power a mal distribution of
power that cannot be reduced to false parodies.
And oftentimes, when I'm asked this question about how I feel about this rocket fire? It's a litmus test about my own moral compass. So here, let me
affirm that Palestinians have the right to use force under international law in order to fend off racial discrimination and colonial regimes.
This law and this right are enshrined in a moment where the majority of the world was under colonial rule and domination. Now that we're in 2021, that
seems incredibly anachronistic, and rather than focus on the absurdity, that this colonialism remains intact, by the one of the 11th most military
powers in the world, the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
Instead, we are focusing on the tactics that Palestinians are using. That said, I think that the emphasis should be on lifting the siege on Gaza,
they remain in an open air prison. And as Israel now initiates some bombardment of the Gaza Strip, I want the audience to know that
Palestinians cannot even become refugees of war, because Israel has sealed those borders.
ANDERSON: Where is the United States in all of this? And I ask you that because many leaders from around the world and indeed in the Arab region
have reacted? We have heard nothing from the White House or certainly from the U.S. President himself.
But I do want you to have a listen and respond to the exchange between Ned Price, the White House Spokesman and a reporter, have a listen Noura?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do Palestinians have a right to self defense?
NED PRICE, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I'm in broadly speaking Sayed (ph), we believe in the concept of self defense; we believe it applies to
any state. I don't think that I certainly wouldn't want my words to be construed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand. I want to ask you - I don't want to harp on this either. But you know these rioters killed 13 people just now,
including maybe five or six children. Do you condemn them? Do you condemn the killing of children?
PRICE: Sayed--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm asking do you condemn the killing of Palestinian children.
PRICE: Obviously, these reports are just emerging. And I understand I was just speaking to the team. I understand we don't have independent
confirmation of facts on the ground yet. So I'm very hesitant to get into reports that are just emerging. Obviously, the deaths of civilians, be it
Israeli or Palestinians are something we would take very seriously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: With respect to Ned Price, let me just - let our viewers know Noura that that was an exchange that happened yesterday evening U.S. time.
But what do you - and he is the State Department Spokesman rather than the White House Spokesman so my mistake there. But what do you make of
Washington's position at this point?
ERAKAT: Washington's position has remained consistent when it became Israel's primary patron in 1967 under the Lyndon B Johnson Administration,
where it talks out of both sides of its mouth by providing unequivocal military economic support to Israel at the same time that it offers empty
platitudes about peace.
And the two state solution which is essentially a liberal veneer for Israel settler colonial expansion and violence. The Biden Administration has
signaled that it is no different that the Trump Administration which the world you know was uproarious about because of his flagrant brazen violence
and disrespect of human rights and yet the Biden Administration has not changed course.
When Trump moved the Embassy, the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem the world was uproarious and Palestinian said we're not mourning the loss
of a Capital of an encode state. We are now mourning the fact that we are told that we don't belong.
[11:30:00]
ERAKAT: And here is the Biden Administration literally overseeing our removal based on the statement that we do not belong there and can be
removed and placed anywhere else.
ANDERSON: Noura with that we will leave it there. We are, though delighted to have you on today. Thank you very much indeed, for joining us and
propose a Palestinian perspective there with Noura Erakat.
ERAKAT: Thank you.
ANDERSON: We're going to take very short break back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANDERSON: Well, numbers are mind blowing on his COVID rips through India. In the past 24 hours, there were more than 329,000 new cases pushing the
total number official number of infections closer to 23 million. Adding to the misery the World Health Organization now says the Indian COVID variant
is much more transmissible classifying it now as a variant of concern.
Now, also troubling signs in rural areas where many people are dying without medical attention. Sam Kiley went to one village to see for
himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's the injustice of a disease that strikes at random that Goverdhan (ph) finds
hardest to bear. He insists that he hasn't cheated anyone in his 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 or tobacco or anything. I'm 70 I've never had around with
anyone. So why is this happening to me he pleads. For the local pharmacist - it's too much. He's done what he can to help but dozens have died here in
the last month.
Goverdhan has been ill for three weeks. This is - home. Most in this Gujarati village in India's best of 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 - experience as a pharmacist. He sourced Oxygen
prescribe drugs. There's no one here no health center, no doctor, no nurse, and there are no facilities in this village.
So then I tackled it in the way I saw fit. Does that make you angry? I got very angry but what can one do?
[11:35:00]
KILEY (voice over): We've got no solutions he says. Dinesh (ph) says he tried to get his father Devraj (ph) into four hospitals but they were full.
His father was diagnosed as a severe COVID patient. Devraj has 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 and 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 - until today, he's been cremating people almost constantly. Now he clears up
their remains.
He's brought extra word for what he fears is coming. In the village, there are homes which have lost up to three people, uncle, son, and mother. He's
kept careful records. So just in the last month he tells me that, and 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 are ready for families to carry the ashes of their dead, urns made by - potter, before he fell ill to a disease which has taken so many of his
neighbors. Sam Kiley, CNN, Chogath.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Well, India's Health Ministry says more than 37 million people have received their second COVID vaccine is now fully vaccinated against
the virus. Well, that is less than 3 percent of India's 1.4 billion strong populations. Gian Gandhi UNICEF's Covax, Coordinator for Supply Division
joins us now live from New York.
India and South Africa have proposed this a vaccine payment waiver. The Biden Administration supports it the WTO though says it could take until
December for a decision why?
GIAN GANDHI, UNICEF'S COVAX COORDINATOR FOR SUPPLY DIVISION: Well, I mean, first of all, you know, to start this out, you know, the situation in India
is a wakeup call for the world. I mean, it tells us that the pandemic is a long way from being over.
I think, you know, we've seen that many people in higher income countries where vaccines are rolling out, have started to consider the sort of post
pandemic world and getting back to some sort of normal and of course, looking at lower income countries as though they've got off lightly and
that I think complacency, really dangerous.
And we're seeing that the situation India that that is a tragedy is now sort of playing into many of our worst fears about this pandemic, that
there are new variants emerging, as you mentioned, and of course, spillover effects in other countries.
And I think that has everyone looking at, well, what do we need to do to resolve this? And of course, one solution is, of course, expanding the
production capacity. And intellectual property has been one of the tools put on the table, the solutions put on the table.
Where UNICEF believes that it the all barriers should be removed. But we think that the best way to achieve that is through the voluntary licensing
and manufacturing partnerships, many of which we've seen manufacturers already sort of embracing and we need more of that and incentives to
achieve that now.
ANDERSON: Ultimately, I mean, I just wanted to get to move on from the vaccine patent waiver after this question. But ultimately, those naysayers,
those who are pushing back and primarily, you know, we're hearing a lot from big pharma say, you know, there are so many other things that need to
be done. The vaccine, the paint waiver, you know, shouldn't be the focus.
But the point is this, we need to use every tool in our kit, right, to ensure that we get jabs into the arms of people everywhere in the world. In
India, in other parts of Asia, where we know these vaccination drives are insufficient at present.
Cyril Ramaphosa has talked about vaccine apartheid, should we not get our act together? Do you agree with him? Do you see a world of vaccine
apartheid at present and going forward?
GANDHI: There's certainly I mean a huge inequity in access and as I mentioned, you know, some of the higher income countries have both
significant doses that are being rolled out, which is great for their national populations.
[11:40:00]
GANDHI: But of course, that many countries are now moving beyond those at highest risk, but many countries in the West and in the global north, and
moving beyond that those populations that have highest risk in vaccinating. Frankly, people that aren't at such great risk, as we're seeing in places
like India, where frontline workers are still yet to be vaccinated in many parts.
And of course, the situation is just as problematic in places throughout Africa. And so we certainly need to up the pace of getting vaccines out to
lower middle income countries. And that requires a number of things.
And the first of those in the most urgent of those is that higher income countries start to share that the excess doses they have at their disposal.
That will not stop them from achieving the goals that the likes of Europe, the UK, the U.S. has set forth nationally, but it will make a huge
difference in countries in South Asia and Africa and the Americas that are struggling to access doses. Secondly, I think--
ANDERSON: There are nearly a dozen - yes, sorry, go on.
GANDHI: No, I was going to say so I think that's definitely - you know, dose sharing and donations of doses is the short term solution to resolve
the supply gap. But longer term--
ANDERSON: Doesn't work? Let me put my question to you. We've got a little bit of a delay on the line so which is why it seemed to be jumping in on
me. There are nearly a dozen countries yet to receive a single COVID-19 vaccine doses according to the W.H.O. and they are calling them vaccine
deserts.
Public health experts have consistently called on governments to urgently redistribute vaccines, relinquish some of their stockpiles, and you are
making that call, once again. Try as Covax mind, it actually isn't as successful as you would want it to be by any stretch of the imagination yet
is it?
GANDHI: So I think Covax always expected that it would be a slowish start, as compared to where we need to get to. So right now we've delivered around
58 million doses to - I think around 120, 121 countries and economies around the world.
And, and of course, where Covax had stated it would get to by the end of this year is 2 billion doses delivered throughout the world. And so a long
way to go but the expectation always was that it would be a slow start. And a lot of that comes down to the complexity of manufacture and the
complexity of scaling up large facilities to meet the needs of the world.
We expect that there will be many more doses rolling out in the second half of the year. And actually, Covax announced diversification of the portfolio
of vaccines at its disposal, whether deal with Moderna and Novavax, in addition to those with Serum Institute of India, Pfizer and of course from
AstraZeneca.
But it's, you know, the delay, I guess the slow start, and the expectation things will certainly get better in the second half of the year doesn't
resolve the immediate term challenge that I think you're right in pointing to.
ANDERSON: Yes, of course, it doesn't. 58 million doses distributed, which we applaud Covax for. But the fact the goal was 2 billion by the end of
this year. It's simply not good enough. It's not Covax's fault. It is for the rest of the world to step up and help this effort. We're taking a very
short break back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:45:00]
ANDERSON: Well, the man police say burst into a Russian school and began shooting is in jail this hour. At least seven children and two adults lost
their lives in the attack in addition, 16 others were wounded. Fred Pleitgen joining us now live from Moscow with Fred the details if you will?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Becky and the details certainly are harrowing in every sense. All this happened
in the town of Kazan, which is about 850 kilometers to the East of Moscow. And it started at 9:30 am and what we have to keep in mind, Becky is that
this was the first day for these children back at school after a public holiday.
And it was at around 9:30 when this gunman did indeed burst into that school and then opened fire. And as you said nine people in the end dead,
seven of them children but some of the eyewitness accounts that we've gotten have just been absolutely terrible.
Children were running out of that school, obviously in horror and some apparently even jumping out of the windows as high as the third floor,
trying to obviously escape that gunman trying to get away as all of this was going on.
Now the authorities probably were at the scene fairly quickly, obviously with police, police Special Forces and in the end managed to apprehend the
gunman. The motives of this gunman, still very much unclear however, one of the things that we always keep in mind is that events like this one, mass
shootings, school shootings are very, very uncommon here in Russia.
You certainly don't have the level of gun ownership that you do have in other countries, like for instance, the United States. And so therefore,
the Russians are already talking about making gun ownership more restrictive here in this country. Because of all the outrage of this has
caused Becky.
ANDERSON: Yes, Fred Pleitgen on the story. Thank you. Over the weekend, we also saw Russia strongly condemn violence in East Jerusalem, what happens
there clearly of global concern and earlier in the show; we took you to Gaza to get the view from there. Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OMAR SHABAN, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, PALTHINK FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES: What is needed to be there is two things - the Palestinian and make the election in
Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza to remove the siege over the Gaza Strip that was imposed in 2014, which create - 2007 which created
social economic difficulty for the Palestinians.
In Gaza 2 million Palestinians in Gaza where I live - are living in 200 mile square, which is very small is a - regulated area, then employment is
around 75 percent. Two thirds of the Gaza families are poor, there is no good water. There is no access to travel to that work to 62 percent of the
Gaza population.
62 percent of the Gaza population is under 50 years old, who have never been outside. So this is a bomb that will explode one day. So we should
defuse the roots of the problem not to continue with the same rhetoric every time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Up next, they are among the most prestigious awards in the music industry. The Brit Awards just hours away and there have been a big change.
We'll explain why with the help of my next guest?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:50:00]
ANDERSON: Welcome back. London will be rocking out in the coming hours. The ceremony for the prestigious Brit Awards is tonight. We will be watching
the event not only to see who wins but because it's England's first major indoor and in person live music event in more than a year.
Dua Lipa and Celeste among those nominated in what's being called a great year for female artists and that include Rina Sawayama, born in Niigata in
1990. Sawayama moved to Northwest London with her parents when she was just five. And she successfully campaigned for a change in the eligibility
rules.
During that campaign, she came up with #sawayamaisbritish sparking a broad conversation about Britishness and inclusion. I spoke to Rena and started
by asking her about the story behind that hash tag?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RINA SAWAYAMA, BRITISH SINGER: Me and my fans came up with that hash tag. You know, when I told this story, and I put the hash tag, I put hash tag to
a lot of things that I do. I didn't realize it would trend and go global. And, yes, I guess it was really important to me that it was like a,
obviously a really clear, like, idea.
And the people could understand why this was important. And I'm really lucky. I have like a fan base that is online. But there's people who are
like, for example, like jazz artists who like are not eligible for the mercury awards, who couldn't - who didn't have a voice, basically.
And I would love to speak to everyone who has been made eligible by this. I know that there's a couple here and there, most notably, Kiley (ph) is now
eligible for the domestic causes, which is so sad. Yes, so I don't know. I mean, I really hope this affects future generations.
But yes, it was, it's incredible because then this led to me being nominated. And all through that time, actually, when the time was British
thing was going on, and up until the rule changed. It was like a whole year so I thought so like, why do you do this? This is so stupid, and I'm going
to get nominated. Like, what's the point like is so dumb? Like that was literally what was going through my head? And then yes--
ANDERSON: Well, you did. And while you didn't win, and you were a nominee for this year's Rising Star Brit Award and that is a huge accomplishment.
Past winners include of course Florence in machine and Adele until a few years ago, you were still an unsigned artists self releasing your songs.
What was it like to be nominated for what is such a prestigious award?
SAWAYAMA: Oh my God! I literally fell to the floor. My label, Jamie Oborne, he called me the head of the label. And he called - he looped in all of us
on the FaceTime, and I was just on my way home from a shoot. And he called me I literally broke down.
It just validated all the feelings I felt. And you know, I think it was something that said, your experiences valid, you deserve to be you know,
raped or like, kind of compared to other people who like work the same way as you. And like, I just I felt the same and that kind of what a lot of
immigrants want to feel like.
You know, you work and work and work so hard trying to assimilate into whatever country you immigrate to. And then you know - and then to be told
that you're not eligible. So this made me feel so included and I - yes - that's the tears where obviously tears of joy, tears of relief, but it was
about that as well as like a 26 year history all being validated and it was amazing.
ANDERSON: Good stuff. This music of yours has been described as new metal. Am I saying that right new metal, heavy metal pop and avant-pop? That's how
it's described. How do you define your sound?
SAWAYAMA: I always say it's just alternative pop because with me, you just never know what you're going to get. There's one song that's new metal
actually, there's a couple of songs as new metal influence. There's always like mixing with like modern R&B, or, you know, I've got dance tracks in
the album as well.
I've got like new jack swing influences. I've got stadium rock influences, and yes, I guess I think a lot of people connected to the fact that it was
such a mishmash of all the things that they grew up with listening to as well. I grew up with the British charts.
ANDERSON: Right. And you've got no - you've got no issues in saying that one of your biggest fans is no other than say Elton John. The two of you
have recently--
SAWAYAMA: Unknown unsigned artists, Elton John.
ANDERSON: What is that all about? You recently released a duet called "Chosen Family". What was it like to work with him?
SAWAYAMA: Oh, that was incredible. Like Elton is so genuinely supportive of new artists.
[11:55:00]
SAWAYAMA: And he found me and I've seen him do this when I'm with him. He's on his iPad, he's scrolling through new music. He's on YouTube. He's on
Spotify and looking at all these new artists. And he was teaching me about new artists. It was amazing.
So he - once he finds them, he'll give him a call, you know, he'll do like, I think he was like tiny. He was like, calling this like this rapper in
Atlanta, like just randomly being like, - like, I love your music. And that's what happened to me too. And so he featured on - he featured me on
his radio show.
And yes, he just was a fan before the album came out. And then even after and he was so supportive and vocal, and when the time is British hash tag
was that going around? So yes, I mean, it's insane. And then we just asked him if he wants to feature on the song he loves the song "Chosen Family".
It means a lot to him. And yes, it's because I think give - yes, sorry, go on.
ANDERSON: No, go on, go on.
SAWAYAMA: --given his, you know, work in AIDS and stuff. I think he has genuinely lost a lot of chosen families, you know, over the years. And so
it connected to him on a completely different level.
ANDERSON: And it's described or it has been described as a "Queer Anthem", because it deals with difficult themes of isolation and the estrangement
which can occur when coming out. You've identified publicly as bisexual and pansexual. And you've spoken about the need to make yourself visible as a
"Queer Asian Woman" in what is largely heteronormative music industry? I guess it's right in saying that. What kind of role model do you hope to be
for your fans?
SAWAYAMA: Well, I just want to be a positive role model honestly, like with my music, I'm always positive and I don't take things seriously. And I
think that's been the one thing that's really helped me through life in general and my "Chosen Family" have helped me through is just putting such
a funny spin on everything.
And you know, if you look at drag, you can see that right? Like, so many drag offices, they do incredible things on stage, and they're so hilarious
and ridiculous. But behind that there is so many traumas so much history, and that's kind of what I try and do with my music.
I'm trying to, you know, turn all these sad things that have happened in my life, and then turn it into like a new metal opera or something. You know,
just and I think in the process of that, it is important to obviously take things seriously but it's also important to have lightness about it just so
people can get on with daily life and be positive.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Rina, you rock. Thank you, wherever you are watching in the world for joining us. "One World" with Zain Asher is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
