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Rocket Fired from Lebanon Lands in Israel; Red Alert Warnings in China Due to Flooding; Five Dead in Devastating Russian Attack in Lviv; Pop Star CoCo Lee Dies at 48; Meta Officially Launches Twitter Rival "Threads". Aired 10-10:40a ET
Aired July 06, 2023 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi.
Fury in Tel Aviv, anger in Jenin, cross border shelling between Israel and Lebanon. We have a lot to get into in this region.
First up, protests against the Israeli government appear to be heating up again. Large crowds blocking Tel Aviv's main highway late Wednesday after
the police chief there resigned.
He accused the government of wanting to use excessive force against demonstrators. At the same time, CNN is learning that a rocket fired from
southern Lebanon has landed in Israel.
Looming over all of this, this week's Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. The U.N. says the deadly operation in the occupied West Bank
may, in its words, "constitute a war crime." I want to go live now to Jerusalem, we've got Salma Abdelaziz on the ground for us.
Salma, great to have you with us. We saw the protesters blocking roads near Ben Gurion Airport and now we are seeing this fallout of the Tel Aviv
police chief, who is now also been reassigned.
What is the messaging from him and also from governments at this stage?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I want to take you to the West Bank, where we were yesterday as you mentioned. The Jenin city camp, where
Israeli forces had just withdrawn in the early hours of the morning. A completely separate incident, of course, from what you were discussing
earlier.
But one that continues to have implications across the region. Israel's military says it carried out its fiercest, largest military operation on
the camp in some 20 years. As you mentioned, the United Nations says that war crimes, it could have amounted to war crimes, this military operation.
And it has criticized Israel for collective punishment of the residents of Jenin. Going inside that camp, you can see just how densely populated it
is, in the widespread destruction and devastation inside. Take a look at what we found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Chants of anger and defiance ring out in the city of Jenin. The morning after Israel's military withdrew, thousands filled
the streets to bury the dead.
The Israeli military says that all 12 killed in its incursion were combatants and that its operation aimed to dismantle terror networks here.
But this father says he is proud his 19-year-old is what he calls a martyr and was a fighter for one of the Palestinian armed factions killed in the
incursion.
My son told me he didn't want to get married or have a family, he says. He said all he wanted to do was to dedicate his life to Palestine to fighting
the occupation.
ABDELAZIZ: This funeral is quickly turning into a demonstration of resistance. Many of the armed Palestinian factions are here to show that
they are unbound, unbroken by Israel's raid.
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): for many Palestinians, Jenin is a name and place synonymous with suffering and resistance. But this battle has come at a
heavy cost.
In the aftermath, the camp's residents were left without running water, electricity or basic services. And families return to destroyed homes.
Hanet Shelaby (ph) says she and her three daughters were caught in the crossfire. Our home, all these material things, they can be replaced, she
says but how can I rebuild the psyche of my little girls?
How will they ever feel safe again?
She takes me upstairs to show me what's left of her daughter's room. My youngest, she's only 7 years old, she tells me. She says she wishes she was
never born. She says I should never have birthed her into this horror.
Israel's military says it's achieved its operational goals, wiping out weapons depots and command centers and Jenin but it has also deepened the
hatred and motivated the resistance in a city notorious for always fighting back.
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ABDELAZIZ: Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared victory.
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ABDELAZIZ: He says that Jenin is no longer a safe haven for combat and that's the security threat toward Israel has been neutralized. Israel
accuses some 50 shooting attacks in the recent period for coming from Jenin.
However, prime minister Netanyahu says he reserves the right to return and send forces back to Jenin if it's deemed a threat. Again, for Palestinians
living in that impoverished camp, they seem all but certain that would happen. Eleni.
GIOKOS: The cycle of violence in Jenin does seem to continue. Despite the fact that Netanyahu says that the objectives were achieved, he also left
the door open for returning, as you say.
ABDELAZIZ: Absolutely.
The question is, what did this solve?
Did this indeed meet the military objectives that the Israeli military had set out at the beginning?
Remember, they said that the Israeli forces were there to take out terror sites, take out command centers, weapon depots. And yes, indeed on the
ground, we did see evidence of that having taken place in Jenin.
But if their goal was to break the back of the Palestinian armed resistance factions in Jenin, we did not see that. As you saw on that piece, we saw
many of the resistant factors, particularly the Jenin brigade that claimed eight of the dead in their ranks, out in full force in this demonstration,
strapped with weapons on their chest, carrying their flags, making it clear they were unbowed by Israel's military raid.
For Palestinians living in the Jenin camp, structural issues remain. It is still one of the poorest places in the West Bank. High unemployment and an
area where there is very little opportunity, very little future.
So you still have these conditions that continue to fuel this insurrection, this armed insurrection, from inside Jenin and you still have of course,
those generations-long anger toward the occupation in the West Bank.
GIOKOS: Yes, Salma Abdelaziz, great to have you, on thank you very much.
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GIOKOS (voice-over): Let's get you up to speed on other stories on our radar right now.
Authorities in South Africa are now saying 17 people have died from nitride gas inhalation near Boksburg. Three of the dead are children. Three others
remain hospitalized in critical condition. The leak apparently came from a gas cylinder that was being used by illegal miners to process gold.
One child has died after a car crashed into an elementary school in southwest London; eight people were injured, including six children. It
happened in the Wimbledon neighborhood, where the big tennis tournament is underway. Police have ruled out terrorism as a motive. The driver was not
arrested.
Israel's prime minister says a dual Israeli Russian citizen missing for several months in Iraq is behind -- held by an Iranian backed Shia militia
group Benjamin Netanyahu says Elizabeth Tsurkov's fate is in the hands of Iraq. He says she traveled there for academic research. Kased Hezbollah
(ph) was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 2009.
U.S. Treasury Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing today. Her three-day trip is aimed at mending frayed ties between the world's top economies. The
Treasury Department official says Yellen and her Chinese counterparts will have a chance to make serious connections when they meet.
She also meet with China's premier. Yellen is expected to bring up issues like climate change and preparing for a future pandemic. The official says
no significant breakthroughs are expected.
Yellen's visit comes as part of China endured devastating flooding. You can see the impact on the startling images from southwestern China. The floods
have killed at least 15 people. Tens of thousands have been forced from their homes. And there are fears the flooding could cause potentially
devastating crop damage, Anna Coren has the details for us.
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ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was the last thing this couple was expecting on their engagement day. While driving to
the ceremony, a flash flood in China's central Hunan province washed away the car.
Their only salvation, scrambling to the roof of the vehicle. Rescuers used a drone to drop a rope and lifejackets to the pair before they were dragged
to the riverbank.
The extreme flooding comes as several parts of China have been hit with torrential rain over the last month, killing at least 15 people in the
southwestern city of Chongqing, according to local authorities and state media and prompting four counties in the city to issue the highest red
alert warnings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We woke up this morning and saw so much rainwater. The flood submerged roads and crops.
COREN (voice-over): Neighboring Sichuan province has also been hard hit where more than 85,000 residents have been displaced, prompting Chinese
leader Xi Jinping --
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COREN (voice-over): -- to order authorities to, quote, "give top priority to keeping residents safe and minimizing losses."
Continuous heavy rain just before the harvest threatens to ruin crops this year. This farmer, in China's central Hunan province, says heavy rain has
drenched his wheat fields.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): After a few days of rain, the ground is very wet. And now the harvester cannot enter the field. We
probably need to wait another four or five days to start harvesting. This is a real disaster.
COREN (voice-over): To help Hunan deal with losses, China's finance ministry announced it will allocate nearly $28 million to help farmers.
But severe damage to the cross could potentially push China to buy more wheat from the global market, where it is already expected to see less
supply as the ongoing war in Ukraine continues to curtail its grain exports.
DARIN FRIEDRICHS, CO-FOUNDER, SITONIA CONSULTING: If there's damage to the crop and we're still figuring out how much that is, that it's likely that
China will need to increase its imports next year. So that would obviously have an impact on global prices and an impact on global markets.
COREN (voice-over): With this seasonal rain slowly shifting north, central China is now bracing for heavy rainfalls -- Anna Coren, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: Still to come, the man leading Ukraine's fight for freedom sits down with CNN, reflecting on the war so far.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): They've been planning to annihilate us completely straight from the start. It's a
fact.
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GIOKOS (voice-over): Meta is now officially launching Threads in hopes of replacing Twitter. Millions of people have already joined. We will take a
closer look.
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GIOKOS (voice-over): Welcome back, I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi, you're watching CONNECT THE WORLD. Here are your headlines this hour.
The Kremlin is not commenting to CNN on the whereabouts of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. This after the president of Belarus responding to a
question by CNN saying Prigozhin was not in his country but in Russia.
The Kremlin said Yevgeny Prigozhin had a deal to go to Belarus after leading an uprising in Russia last month.
Now in the skies over Syria, the U.S. military says Russian fighter pilots were unsafe and unprofessional when they intercepted three U.S. drones on a
mission against ISIS terrorists. At one point, the Russians released parachute flares in front of the drones, forcing an operator to conduct
evasive maneuvers.
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GIOKOS (voice-over): Ukraine now says five people were killed in an attack on the western city of Lviv. At least 3 dozen people were injured. Local
authorities in the meantime say a missile slammed into an apartment building and the most devastating attack in civilians since the war began.
GIOKOS: Now despite attacks on Ukrainian soil like the deadly strike in Lviv, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy says his Russian counterpart, Vladimir
Putin, is weaker than ever. He spoke with our Erin Burnett and we got part of that exclusive interview now. He explains how equipment from other
countries could help save Ukrainian lives on the ground.
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ZELENSKYY (through translator): Today, we've got a different war. Not only people die, first and foremost, we need material to save human lives and
this material gives results.
When we talk about ATACMS, they are very important because we can hit some long-distance targets without losing our people. The fact that Russia has
advantage on the ground and has more long-range weaponry is one of the things but ATACMS are very important.
Will this accelerate our moving forward?
Yes, 100 percent, because in some directions, it will give us opportunities to start the counteroffensive. In some directions, we cannot even think of
starting it, as we don't have the relevant weapons.
And throwing our people to be killed by Russian long-range weapons will be simply inhumane. So we're not going to do it and ATACMS is definitely our
priority.
We also have shortages in artillery. We cannot hit all the targets because of the absence of the quantity in our own artillery. We gather some units
in the priority directions but we cannot divide it between many. We lack quantity. This is a fact.
As F-16s, I emphasized on it many times. It's not even about the Ukrainian advantage in the sky over the Russians. This is only about being equal.
F-16s help not only those on the battlefield to move forward, it's simply very difficult without a cover from the air. We've got losses of lives and
slowing down.
However, let's look at F-16s as a very important humanitarian mission. We've talked about it many times, the grain initiative. Erin, we are today
in Odessa, the grain corridor, extremely important for the whole world is happening just here. It's important for Africa, Asia, for the countries of
Europe, et cetera.
Today, if the Russians are beginning to block this corridor, we don't have anything to answer this. F-16s give us the possibility to build the defense
of this corridor.
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GIOKOS: You can watch that entire exclusive interview at CNN.com or on our app. It is brilliant content and insight into Ukraine.
Now the U.S. Navy says it prevented Iranian warships from seizing two commercial oil tankers in international waters in the Gulf of Oman. In one
incident, U.S. officials say an Iranian navy ship opened fire at a tanker with small arms. No one was injured.
Iran says its navy had a court order to seize the tanker after it collided with an Iranian vessel. The U.S. Navy and its allies have stepped up
patrols in the region to counter Iranian seizures of commercial ships.
Now in hidden spots Brazil's Women's World Cup team arriving in Australia, showing solidarity with protesters in Iran. Their strong statements on
human rights, that's up next.
Plus, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk may have agreed to a physical cage match. But right now, their apps are fighting it out online as Meta's new
effort to take on Twitter goes live.
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GIOKOS: Well, she was a pioneering singer and the first Chinese American to perform at the Oscars. Today fans around the world are mourning the
death of CoCo Lee. The family of the Hong Kong born singer says she died Wednesday at the age of 48, after a suicide attempt.
They say she had been battling depression. Life became one of the first Asian singers to shoot to fame on the international stage. In 1999, she
told CNN her goal was to have a global voice.
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COCO LEE, SINGER: The whole world, that's my goal, to break into the whole world because I believe I can do it. I think there has never been an Asian
American artist that broke into the United States successfully.
And I have a team of people who believe I can do it. And that's what I'm working on right now. Hopefully, my album will do well. Hopefully, everyone
in the world will get to hear CoCo Lee's voice.
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GIOKOS: As fans grieve her passing, they're also saluting 30 years of CoCo Lee's singing career.
Facebook parent company Meta is launching a new social media app that is a direct rival to Twitter. The app, named Threads, debuted today, with the
CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, saying some 10 million people signed up for the service of the first few hours.
And as you can see, I was one of them. For comparison, Twitter has a user base of some 300 million. It's also worth mentioning that Zuckerberg has a
long-standing feud with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last year.
I want to bring in our technology reporter, Brian Fung, who is with us now.
I mean, it was really easy to get on Threads. I just synced it up with my Instagram account. I guess I made a silly mistake because now I'm following
everyone that I follow on Instagram on Threads. And that's not the kind of content I would want on a platform like this.
Take us through what Meta's end game is here, whether they really can rival Twitter as a news source.
BRIAN FUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eleni, it's really very basic. Meta wants to steal market share from Twitter by drawing people from Twitter to this
new app, Threads.
As you pointed out, 10 million signed up in the first seven hours, it just gives you a sign of how strong a start this app has gotten. And in part due
to, as you said, the ease of the signup process, where the app actually lets you automatically follow everyone that you're already connected with
on Instagram.
So you know, Meta has this huge built-in advantage of a massive installed user base. It is using that to try and encourage more and more people to
leave Twitter and to come to Threads.
Now how does Threads actually differ from Twitter?
Some basic differences here; you have a 500 character limit on Threads, compared to Twitter, which is a slightly smaller character limit. You also
have a much more slimmed down experience right now on Threads.
The feed that you see on Threads is actually very limited. You just see an Instagram style algorithmic feed that shows everyone the same thing. It's
custom tailored to by algorithm. So you can actually currently see just the content of the people you're following.
There's also more limited features in terms of search and no hashtags or other organizational features. But despite all those limitations, it
doesn't seem to be stopping people from downloading and signing up for this incredibly popular app, that really has a good chance of unseating Twitter
as the next Twitter. And all of that --
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FUNG: Sorry, go ahead.
GIOKOS: Wait, look, we're all waiting for this cage fight, right?
In the meantime, it's metaphorical I guess at this point unless it's happening in the ether. Mark Zuckerberg tweeting in the first time in a
decade, the meme was so fascinating.
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GIOKOS: It's two Spider-men looking at each other, they're copying each other. I mean it's a similar platform, it's just who's going to do it
better. There you can see that meme he posted.
Is this quite a serious rivalry that you're seeing coming through in terms of who can pull this off?
FUNG: We've seen Meta try and copy other apps before -- TikTok, Snapchat - - introducing various features on Meta's platforms to try and mimic those platforms or features on those platforms.
We really haven't seen anything like this, where it's, Meta is trying to do the copying at a time when the app it's copying is doing so much to
sabotage itself. In the last few days even, Twitter has taken numerous steps to make it harder for users to see tweets on the platform, which this
maybe furthering this push, this demand by users for a new alternative and may be driving some of the uptake of this new app from Meta -- Eleni.
GIOKOS: Yes, it's a vulnerable moment for Twitter I would say. It's just opened the door.
You're on Threads already, yes?
(CROSSTALK)
GIOKOS: I'll find you there.
(LAUGHTER)
GIOKOS: Great to have you on, thank you so much, Brian.
The Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand kicks off in just two weeks. Teams are starting to arrive down under, including the Brazilian
woman's squad, with the stark message, paying tribute to Iranian protesters. Amanda Davies joins me now.
Incredible to see the writing on the airplane as it landed, the images of Mahsa Amini. Take us through what message they're sending ahead of the
Women's World Cup.
AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Eleni, there is a real awareness that this is the biggest ever women's sporting event set to take place in
Australia and New Zealand. And an understanding from so many people involved that it is a platform.
People have been talking about how best to use that platform. If you remember, the men's World Cup in Qatar, where the Iran men's national team
were playing, there was a lot of focus around their games from fans and players protesting against the regime in Iran.
Particularly with the focus on Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for not wearing a head scarf. She was detained and ultimately that led to her
death.
So Brazil have arrived here with these stark messages on the side of a charter plane, which they chartered to take them to Australia. The messages
said no woman should be forced to cover her head. And no man should be hanged for saying that.
And that is because Amin Azadani, an Iranian footballer, who was arrested in the protests, in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death, he has been
imprisoned. He is something else whose flight is being highlighted.
The Brazilian Football Association haven't commented. They just said at the moment that they chartered this plane. But it will be very interesting to
see as more teams arrive at the tournament in Australia and New Zealand. With women very much saying they want to use their platform.
What other messages will be promoted over the course of the tournament?
GIOKOS: And a powerful message indeed. Amanda Davies, we'll see right after the short break.
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