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Looming Trade War with China and the US. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired April 04, 2018 - 08:00   ET

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

ANDREW STEVENS, HOST: I'm Andrew Stevens in Hong Kong. Welcome to News Stream. Will China retaliate? Beijing hits the US with new tariffs with

fears of a trade war growing more real by the hour. A critical summit on Syria key players in the devastating war meet in Turkey as Donald Trump

mulls pulling out US troops. And space junk be gone, how a satellite plans to remove debris from the Earth's orbit.

Well fears from a possible trade war between the world's two biggest economies are escalating, as after China announced plans to impose a 25

percent tariff on $50 billion worth of US exports. The 106 products from the US include soybeans, cars, chemical products and air craft.

Now this news comes just hours after the US published a list of proposed tariffs affecting more than 1,000 Chinese exports including aerospace tech

and machinery industries. Others would target medical equipment, medicine and educational material. Well China is slamming this move by the US.

(VIDEO CLIP BEGINS)

LU KANG, SPOKESPERSON CHINESE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: What the United States has done, is in total ignorance of the essence of the mutually

beneficial and win-win cooperation in trade between China and the United States over the past four decades. In total defiance of the voices of the

industries of the two countries and in total disregard of the interest of consumers.

(VIDEO CLIP ENDS)

STEVENS: Now just a short time ago President Trump tweeted insisting that the US is not in a trade war with China. He also slams previous leaders

who allowed China's theft of US intellectual property. We Beijing responded to those claims with a phrase pretty well known to Mr. Trump.

(VIDEO CLIP BEGINS)

WANG SHOUWEN, CHINESE VICEMINISTER OF COMMERCE: As for the media reports you cited I think I'd like to use the term President Trump often loves to

say and call them fake news.

(VIDEO CLIP ENDS)

STEVENS: That's from those claims of intellectual property threat theft by China that come from the US. Let's go to Clare Sebastian now she's at the

New York Stock Exchange, looks like it's going to be a pretty rocky opening down there Clare. But just before we get to that I mean we knew that China

was going to retaliate but this is just that they've moved very very quickly to say exactly what they're going to do.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, COORESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely Andrew I think that is the key here. Obviously this is very much reciprocal $50 billion worth of

tariffs 25 percent. You know it's a mirror reaction, but I think it's an escalation relative to what the markets were expecting because it came so

quickly.

Don't forget we're the (inaudible) after the US imposed on China. China waited until actually came in effect to retaliate. Not only (Inaudible)

but it's the actual product that the Chinese tariffs cover.

These are not only economically sensitive they are politically sensitive as well. Soybeans China is biggest export market for soybeans. They're

also producing states which are very much pro-Trump.

So China hitting the US not only politically but economically. But I think from the markets point of view this about uncertainty as well. Where

does this go next? How does this end? And you see the administration coming out this morning trying to calm down those fears as we've DOW

futures plunges as much as 600 points in the pre-market.

The Trump Tweet thing this isn't a trade war, Wilbur Ross of commerce has actually gone on television saying these tariffs are only 0.3 percent of US

GDP but I think you're going to see the market get a jolt when trading starts.

STEVENS: Certainly looks like it at this stage. Clare thanks very much for that. Clare Sebastian. Let's go now chief economist for the economist

intelligence unit Simon Baptist and he joins us from Singapore looking at some jitters there on the market but let's just go back to this question of

trade war is it or isn't it? Donald Trump says it isn't what do you say?

SIMON BAPTIST, CHIEF ECONOMIST, AUSTRALIA ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT: I mean the thing we're wondering about a trade war is there hinges about what

the definition is so, it depends on how you want t frame it. But what we definitely know is going to happen is there is going to be an escalation in

trade sanctions between different countries. (Inaudible) is that these trade sanctions have not yet been implemented, they've all just been

announced.

And China has just announced what it will do in retaliation if the if the US introduces the tariffs it had or the restrictions it has announced on

Chinese intellectual property and the tech sector so, they've a long way to play us (ph). And China is being very clear that is going through World

Trade Organization. Which is good for its (inaudible) and size good for its international audience and it's also going to mean the process is going

to be a little bit slow before these things actually happen.

STEVENS: Just quickly on that point. Does China have a case in from of the World Trade Organization? Is Donald Trump, is the US breaking the

rules on its tariffs?

[08:05:00]

BAPTIST: I mean, I guess we'll leave the definitive answer to the WTO judges, but I mean, my feeling would be yes, China would have a case. But,

I mean this really is just part of how China has quite successfully played the global trade infrastructure, which is that the kinds of things that

China does to block foreign companies having access to its markets, things like (inaudible) inspections or particular licensing requirements or

voluntary or so-called voluntary agreements to do joint R&D.

They're not (inaudible) fall under WTO rules, and so China's restrictions have -- have been outside of that. So you can say they've been a bit more

clever in how they've gone about it. But I mean, there's no question that China has not been trading freely with the rest of the world. And I think

the fact that Xi has been supporting the state enterprises (ph) so much and it's now been (ph) clear that China's move to liberalism was a (inaudible)

now the rest of the world, and Trump in particular, is not willing to put up with it.

STEVENS: Yes, that's a clear point, that the Chinese do support their -- their key industries very, very heavily. Now, we know that the U.S. just

recently said that they're going to double the amount of time of consultation period before they implement these latest round of tariffs.

It's now 60 days. And there's a suggestion that they're doing that so China can move to try and address some of the U.S. concerns.

So do you think it's actually likely that in two months time that we are going to have the tariffs that we see now or there -- will there have been

negotiations, horse trading and it won't be as severe as it looks right now?

BAPTIST: I mean, there is a genuine uncertainty around that. And my feeling is A, if I had to choose, is that I think the tariffs probably will

happen. Maybe not in the full list (ph) that's been out, but certainly a - - more than 50 percent of them. And the reason being is that -- I mean, Trump really doesn't like free trade and he's very clearly signaled he is

not willing to accept what China has been doing and he's going to take action about it.

Now on the other hand, China is not going to open up it's sensitive centers like finance or like e-commerce to foreign competitors. So there's going

to be a bit of an impasse there and neither leader is going to be willing to look weak domestically to -- to -- to foreign -- to foreign pressure.

So I do think there will be -- there will definitely be some tariffs. And the U.S. doesn't mind probably so much. I mean, Trump is trying to limit

the political impact by putting tariffs on goods that are used by businesses rather than by consumers.

I mean, that's going to -- we've already seen the business lobbies in the U.S. complaining and those prices will eventually be (inaudible). So there

will be some pain, but I suspect the U.S. is willing to take it.

STEVENS: Yes, it's interesting. It's important to notice -- to note, as you point out, that the U.S. industry is actually -- they agree with --

with -- with what China's been doing. And -- and the U.S. actually tackling China, but they don't necessarily agree with -- with the strategy,

i.e. tariffs. But Simon, (ph) we're going to have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us. Simon Baptist, Chief Economist with the

Economist Intelligence Unit.

Now, right now the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Russia are all in the Turkish capital. They met a few hours ago and the goal there, to find a

solution to the war in Syria. Those three countries are the biggest foreign military forces in that country right now, excluding the United

States, which is absent from the talks as well. But the U.S. president is also having his say, reiterating on Tuesday that he wants out.

Those comments came just three minutes after his special envoy for defeating ISIS said, quote, our mission is not over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's time. It's time. We were very successful against ISIS, we'll be successful against anybody

militarily. But sometimes it's time to come back home. And we're thinking about that very seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEVENS: Well, CNN is across all angles of this story for you. Nick Paton Walsh is following developments from London, Fred Pleitgen is in the Syrian

capital of Damascus. But let's start now with CNN's Gul Tusyuz. She's in Ankara where the leaders are meeting. And Gul, the leaders have met. Are

you hearing what's come out of that meeting? And I'm just more curious about broadly, how do they see the peace deal unfolding?

Is it going to be a case of carving Syria up for the three interests? Or is there going to be some solution which keeps Syria in tact and Syria sort

of together, if you like?

GUL TUYSUZ, JOURNALIST, CNN: Well, one of the big things that these three countries, which do not always see eye to eye when it comes to Syria have

in common is the idea of maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria. That's something that all three of them have stated in the past and are

looking to achieve. Today's talk is supposed to be about finding a political solution to carry this -- Syria's future forward.

Whether or not they can actually come together, overcoming their differences is something that we just don't know at this point.

[08:10:00]

Of course they're here, they've gathered in the past as well, and they are the major power brokers when it comes to the war in Syria. But there are

grave obstacles of course. Russia and Iran back the Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad while Turkey of course is a sponsor and patron to the

Syrian rebels.

And whether or not they can come together and come to any sort of agreement that makes any sense for the future of Syria is up for grabs at this point.

It is a very hard sell and of course what's very key in all of this is the fact that these three parties while they exert a great deal of influence on

the ground are not Syrian themselves. So they will have to go back to their proxies on the ground and try to make sure that whatever decision

they come up with here, if they come up with anything at all, is actually acceptable to their Syrian partners on the ground, Andrew.

STEVENS: And meanwhile the carnage in Syria continues while these negotiations go ahead. Gul thanks very much for that. Let's turn to Nick

Paton Walsh now, he joins us live from London. Nick a couple of things, Vladimir Putin is claiming that the war against ISIS has been won, while we

hear Donald Trump saying that he wants the US out. I mean these are both sort of big, big issues. Just put them together for us, A has the war

against ISIS been won? And what would it mean for Syria if the US did leave?

NICK PATON WALSH: Well Vladimir Putin said this a couple of times and frankly the war against ISIS will never "be won". It will never be

extinguished as an ideology in some form online. There are pockets in Syria where they still exist and in Iraq as well because it is really, at

the end of the day, the nasty extreme end of Isenian(ph) assurgency whose political societal problems have not been met by the last five or six years

of war, but that's a whole separate issue.

The broader question really for Donald Trump now and the U.S. troops inside of Syria is are they staying or are they going? Now we were with them in

late February to see areas where they exert an influence. Much of the exact locations are classified but they reasonable well known amongst the

population. There they exert some element of control and a presence between the Syrian cruds that they'd been backing to fight ISIS and the

Turkish back Syrian rebels that are close to them in Manbij(ph) off to the west of the area that those Syrian Kurds control. There kind of there are

peace keepers frankly, to keep the two sides from accidentally flaring up on each other.

And more broadly too, they work to the South West and South East to keep the regime and the Russian's who back them at bay as well, from that Syrian

Kurdish area. There influence too does slow down the capacity for Iran to move material and people through to Lebanon, closer towards Israel and

reduces, if you'd like, kind of the Iranian accesses and influence in that part of the Middle East. That's key for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf allies

that the U.S. assist there. The question really is, we've just seen sadly a casualty amongst those U.S. forces.

How long does the United States intend to stay? Donald Trump staggeringly frankly if you listen to the exact words he said, talked about the last 17

years, spending $17 trillion dollars and how they had nothing "nothing". He said it several times to show for it but death and destructions.

Effectively saying during the speech that Saudi Arabia should think about paying for keeping U.S. troops on their. And of course that's casts a pull

on the last - somewhere(ph) almost two decades of U.S. sacrifice in the Middle East and also Afghanistan and that's what he must have been

including in those 17 years.

But more broadly as well, it puts them kind of emphasis now on exactly who's willing to fund this moving forwards, is Trump's talk about departure

a gambit to get money out of allies. A bazaar thing to hear from the Commander in Chief or is there are larger strategic issue here, where

frankly the more Trump see's that the U.S. population is tired of idea of given people in Middle East round them(ph).

STEVENS: OK and can the U.S. military turn Donald Trump around? And keep U.S. there. Nick Paton Walsh thanks very much for that. So let's go now

to Syria where all this is gruesomely and tragically unfolding. Our Fred Pleitgen joins us from Damascus. Fred we're hearing the political

leadership talking, talks, talks, talks. Meanwhile what's happening on the ground?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN: Well what's happening on the ground is that the Syrians of course as we know are not part of these talks that are going on as Gul

just said. However the Syrian government forces certainly are making sweeping territorial gains especially with the help of the Russian's.

Right now what's going on is that the Syrian military is very close to reclaiming almost all of the area in and around the capital, Damascus. In

fact right now the Russian's are conducting negotiations with one of the last rebel groups in a pocket East of Damascus. The trouble(ph) try to get

them to come out. We were at that check point where there's already a trickle and here's what we saw. We're at the final entry check point to

Douma, which is the last rebel enclave in the Eastern out skirts of Damascus.

[08:15:00]

Now what we've been seeing here is several buses with what we believe to be rebel fighters exiting this area. Now, most of those fighters in the past

couple of days have been bussed to other locations, mostly in the north of Syria.

The groups that we saw, we're not sure which rebel group they were from and also, we're not sure where they were being taken. But in the past couple

of weeks, the rebels have lost a considerably amount of territory here on the eastern outskirts of Damascus. They used to hold a gigantic area, but

after extremely heavy fighting, tens of thousands of civilians fled this area and then also thousands of fighters were bussed out as well.

Now with the rebels only holding one small enclave, many believe that a deal will be reached soon for those rebels to go out as well. So far, it's

unclear when exactly that's going to happen. But there do seem to be people here in Damascus who think it will be very soon. In fact, we spoke

to people who came here to this checkpoint and said that they had relatives who were kidnapped by the rebels, some of them for years, who they hope

will come out soon. Here's what one woman said.

I depend on god, she says. This is my only hope. I will wait here as long as it takes for my father to come out.

Now the deal to try and get the last rebel group here in this part of Damascus, called the Jaysh al-Islam, to give up is being negotiated mostly

by the Russians. And it certainly seems as though the government of Syria believes that deal will happen soon. In fact, there are already dozens of

buses waiting here outside of Douma district ready to take those fighters to the north of Syria.

Which essentially would mean that the rebels would no longer hold any sort of significant territory in or outside the Syrian capital.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And judging by what we're seeing on the ground here, Andrew, it certainly seems to us that especially the Russians and the Syrian

government -- the Iranians as well, but especially the Russians and the Syrian government certainly seem to eye to eye -- eye to eye about the

goals that they have and what they want to achieve. And that's also one of the reasons why Vladimir Putin has such a strong position at these

negotiations that are going on right now in Ankara. Andrew.

STEVENS: OK, Fred, thank you. Fred Pleitgen in Damascus. Now, Donald Trump is touting action his administration has taken against Russia, saying

nobody has been tougher on Moscow than he has. Well, Mr. Trump made the remarks as he hosted the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at the

White House on Tuesday. But he also opened the door to better relations with the U.S. -- with Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Getting along with Russia is a good thing. Getting along with China is a good thing. I think I could have a very good relationship with

Russia and with President Putin. And if I did, that would be a great thing. And there's also a great possibility that that won't happen. Who

knows?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEVENS: Well, the U.S. president there, speaking after meetings with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Now three victims are still in

hospital after the YouTube headquarters shooting, one of them in a critical condition. Coming up, disturbing new details about the attack and the

woman police have identified as the shooter. Plus, it's been a month since the nerve agent attack in England which sparked a diplomatic row between

Russia and dozens of countries in the west.

Ahead, how the U.K. is responding to what they call Russia's disinformation campaign.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:00]

STEVENS: Welcome back, you're watching News Stream. Now, Britain is not letting up in its allegations against Russia. It's calling Moscow's demand

for a joint investigation into the Salisbury attack, quote, perverse. It comes as an international watch dog on chemical weapons, kickoff an

emergency meeting on the poisoning at Russia's request. Well, Russia's Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman is giving a briefing at this hour and is

expected to touch on that subject.

And the way it comes is experts examining the nerve agents are giving a less decisive claim to its origin. They're saying they can't pinpoint

where the substance was made. With more on this, Matthew Chance joins us from Moscow and Phil Black is in Salisbury.

Matthew, we'll start with you first. This meeting in The Hague of the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons was instigated by

Russia. What does Russia want to achieve from this?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDANT: Well, Russia, from the (exits) has been categorically denying any involvement in this - in

this episode, in this poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal on the streets of Salisbury and they called this emergency session of the OPCW to answer a

whole rack of questions that they've put to the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons that they say will help clear up this

situation.

What the British say is that this just a diversionary tactic and it's another example of the Russians dragging their feet and not giving the kind

of credibility to this organization that it should. But the whole issue has been made a whole lot worse by the fact that there's been some concern

expressed over this interview that was given by the head of the Port and Damn Facility in Britain, are saying that this facility does not have it in

its mandate, essentially, to designate where the chemical came from. This issue has been seized upon by the Russians as evidence that this whole allegation by the British that the Russians were behind this attack against

the Skripals has been fabricated. In fact, within the past few hours, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Agency, the SVR, has said it was a

gross provocation that's staged by the United Kingdom and United States intelligence services implicating Russia in this way.

Dmitry Peskov, who is the spokesperson for the Kremlin said it was a mad acquisition. Again, all this coming after this admission by the Port and

Dam Facility that it couldn't designate exactly where this chemical, this (inaudible) was produced.

Even, Vladimir Putin, who rarely speaks about this, in fact, I don't think he's spoken about it up until now. But, Vladimir Putin, the Russian

President has said - spoken how astonished he was at how quickly Russia was accused of being behind the Skripal poisoning.

And so, Russians are throwing everything they've got now, diplomatically, at this idea, that this allegation that they were involved is illegitimate

and is, basically, a cover by those that really perpetrated it to make Russia look bad.

STEVENS: Matthew, thank you. So, what are the British saying, let's go to Phil Black now. He joins us from Salisbury where that took - the poisoning

took place a month ago, today. Phil, you heard Matthew Chance, here, talking about this really piling on by the Russians accusing the British of

loosely making this up. But there does seem to be some daylight with what the scientists are saying about the origin of this chemical and what the

government was saying. Can you explain that?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDANT: Yes, so what we've heard from the head of the Defense and Technology laboratory in Dallas, what you just touched on,

is that the scientists there are confident that this is from the Novichok group of chemicals, a group of chemicals that was developed by the Soviet

Union.

What they have not been able to identify is, specifically, where this particular sample of Novichok, that is the sample that was used against

Sergei and Yulia Skripal, was actually produced and made.

Now, that is largely consistent with what the British government has said all along. That is, that they believe that the chemical used - in use was

Novichok. They believe, for a variety of other reasons, that it was likely Russia that produced it because they say they've had evidence of Russia

stockpiling

[08:25:00]

Novichok (ph) because they say they have evidence and intelligence that points to Russia developing the capacity to deploy this weapon for the

purpose of assassination and because they say Russia has made it clear that former agents, traitors to Russia, are legitimate targets for

assassination. Now Britain has also said that it has other intelligence that it hasn't been able to make public, but that has been the public

argument so far and it has stuck to that largely.

Where it has varied from it, well it appears to be in a series of hiccups that are being identified after these statements from the Defense Science

and Technology Lab. There is a question over some statements by the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who seems to have said that Porton Down

did in fact identify this particular sample of nerve agent as being made in Russia. And there is also a Tweet that has now been deleted from the

foreign office website that suggested it was produced in Russia as well.

On the whole though, Britain says that its position hasn't changed, that it maintains that Russia is the likely culprit here and that is why it has

been able to garner such an international coalition in taking a very firm line with Russia and insisting that Moscow has questions to answer about

how the nerve agent came to be deployed here in Salisbury.

ANDREW STEVENS: Phil thanks very much, Phil Black joining us from Salisbury. Now Facebook has removed hundreds more fake pages and accounts

run by a Russian-linked troll group after the first purge months ago. Let's break this one down, 138 Facebook pages created by the Internet

Research Agency has been deleted, they had more than a million followers.

Facebook also took down 70 profiles and 65 Instagram accounts, that's nearly 300 overall. Facebook says these pages were mainly aimed at Russian

speakers. In February, Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, ended up indicting 13 Russians allegedly linked to the firm as part of his U.S. election-

meddling probe. Now we're all familiar with the term fake news now, made famous by President Donald Trump of course. In Malaysia though, you could

face six years behind bars and $123,000 fine for spreading it. The U.S. State Department is concerned that the bill, which was passed by the

Malaysian Parliament this week, will harm expression of - - freedom of expression.

Now the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. is being celebrated in marches and memorials in the U.S. today. After 50 years - - 50 years after his

assassination, his legacy of non-violent protest is still bringing people onto the streets. In Washington, there's a silent march and a rally to end

racism. Civil rights activists say that MLK's message of racial equality still needs to be heard today.

You're watching News 3, we're going to take a short break we'll be just back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]

STEVENS: I'm Andrew Stevens in Hong Kong, you're watching NEWS STREAM and these are your world headlines. China hits back, Beijing has announced

plans to (ph) impose a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of U.S. exports, including soybeans, planes, and cars.

The news (ph) coming just hours after the U.S. published a list of 1,300 Chinese products that it intends to hit with new tariffs. President Trump

tweeted last hour insisting the U.S. is not in a trade war with China.

Well just hours ago, the leaders of Turkey, Russia and Iran met, trying to find some resolution to the ongoing war in Syria. They are the three

biggest external military forces in the country right now, excluding the United States.

But yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his position that he wants America out of Syria. The U.N. secretary general calls the conflict

in Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

(Inaudible) three quarters of the population, more than 22 million people are in desperate need of aid. Now in its fourth year, the war has been

particularly deadly to children.

Three victims are still in hospital after the YouTube headquarters shooting, one of them in a critical condition, disturbing new details are

now emerging about the woman police say opened fire at the company's California offices. Kyung Lah has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have a report of subject with a gun, this will be from the YouTube building.

KYUNG LAH, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: New details about the woman police say shot three people at YouTube's headquarters before taking her own life.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She shot that person up really bad, no remorse, no nothing, I mean it was death row.

LAH: Authorities identifying the shooter as 39 year old San Diego resident Nasim Aghdam, the L.A. Times reporting that law enforcement is looking at

this website, created by Aghdam, as part of their investigation.

On the site, Aghdam repeatedly critising YouTube, accusing the website of filtering her channels to keep her videos from getting views, something she

blames on new closed minded YouTube employees.

NASIM AGHDAM: You see that me (ph) new videos hardly get views and my old videos that used to get many views have stopped getting views.

LAH: Aghdam's brother who did not want to be on camera, telling CNN affiliate KGTV that his sister used YouTube to advocate against animal

cruelty, one of her passions.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She was a nice person, innocent person, she never hurt any -- any creatures.

LAH: The San Diego Union Tribune posting this picture from 2009 of Aghdam protesting with PETA. Aghdam's brother tells KGTV that his family reported

her missing this weekend after she stopped answering her phone.

They then located her car in a city near YouTube's headquarters.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: She has (ph) problems with YouTube, so they called that cop (ph) again and showed him that she might -- there's a reason she

ran all the way from San Diego to there (ph).

LAH: Local police did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. Authorities say Aghdam opened fire on a group of YouTube

employees shortly before 1 pm Tuesday.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: All of a sudden we heard two sirens and then we -- we saw some people quickly running out of the building.

LAH: Two minutes after the first call, police arrived as employees fled the scene before locating Aghdam's body and ushering the injured to safety.

Those YouTube and Instagram accounts are now down.

As far as the people who were hurt, a local hospital here says three people were transported with gunshot wounds. They range in critical to fair

condition. There was a fourth person who was hurt, that was an ankle injury, and there is some conflicting information.

Two law enforcement sources are telling CNN that this shooter knew at least one person here, but officially police here are saying it doesn't appear

she knew anyone. Andrew.

STEVENS: Kyung Lah reporting there. Now a new technology often brings new problems, and in the case of space exploration, it's now tons of space junk

orbiting our earth.

Just ahead, we'll talk with someone who's working to clean it all up in an experiment that's never been tried before.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:35:00]

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN ANCHOR: I just want to take you back to Ankara briefly just to show you pictures here of a press conference currently underway.

That is the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking. He's also flanked by Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani the Iranian leader. They have

been meeting in the past few hours talking about a deal for peace in Syria. We'll continue to monitor this press conference of course and bring you the

details as they come out.

Now judges on the hit U.K. show "Master Chef" has sparked an international outrage after criticizing a Malaysian-born contestant for one of her

dishes. Judge Greg Wallace slams a Zaleah Olpin's chicken rending (curry) for not being crispy, claiming he couldn't eat it. Well Olpin was later

eliminated from the competition. Rending is popular across Southeast Asia where it's served tender and not crispy.

Well many people took to social media saying Wallace doesn't understand their cousine. It even got to a ministerial level. Malaysia's Foreign

Minister accusing the judge of whitesplaining too often. The country's Prime Minister then chimed in tweeting, "who eats chicken rending that's

crispy?"

The former Malaysian Prime Minister also tweeting, "Maybe you are confusing rending chicken with KFC." And in an Instagram post, Olpin wrote, "I'm

gutted to be eliminated but I stand by my traditional way of cooking (inaudible). I will not change it for the world." (inaudible) them for

doing that. Wow, what a reaction.

Now the Dragon cargo spacecraft launched by SpaceX is due to dock at the international space station soon. It's got supplies on board including a

first of its kind experiment to remove large amounts of debris which currently circles the earth. Debris has become known as space junk.

Scientists say there are nearly 700,000 tons of space junk in low earth orbit including all parts of spacecraft, satellites and stages of launch

vehicles.

Take a look at that. Don't adjust your screen. That (inaudible) is actually some of the space junk which is orbiting the earth. Incredible.

Now they're zooming around the planet roughly 28,000 kilometers an hour and even just a small piece could be a threat to current space missions

particularly if they were to collide with spacecraft that had people on board.

Well now the remove debris mission aims to test out junk removal techniques. You see things like harpoons, nets, and sails. Well the

mission then plans to bring those pieces back to the earth's atmosphere where they will burn up.

OK, well Guglielmo Aglietti is the Principal Investigator of the Remove Debris Mission and serves as director of the Surrey Space Centre at the

University of Surrey which has launched this experiment, I guess at this stage Guglielmo. But certainly, it's a very brave experiment. I'd love to

talk about it. Just explain though, first of all how does these various types of collecting of space junk actually work? How does that sail work

for example?

GUGLIELMO AGLIETTI, INVESTIGATOR OF THE REMOVE DEBRIS MISSION: Well, let's say that we are trying different technologies that can be used to capture

the space junk and then to destroy it. For example, the sail that you mentioned is the last thing that is used because deploying the sail really

increases the drag that the satellite produces so you lower the altitude of the orbit and then satellite and the piece of debris that is being captured

burn together into the atmosphere.

STEVENS: Now, how long are you going to be conducting this particular experiment for and how much space junk, sort of in terms of weight, are you

hoping to collect?

AGLIETTI: The idea, in our experiment, is just to demonstrate some of the technologies, because what you want to do is to target one large piece of

junk and remove that, because the idea is that these large piece of junk are the ones that pose the major threat. Because if they collide between

themselves, for example, or they are hit by something else, they break into thousands of pieces and so the pollute the whole orbit.

So, what we are going to try to demonstrate is not technologies to remove a lot of bits and pieces, but just to remove one large piece of junk, for

example, an older satellite that is no longer working and that is in orbit that is quite busy, so that would be an ideal target.

But, in the mission we just prove the concept. So, we will release our own (inaudible) targets and these targets will be -- one will be captured using

the net, the other one is the target for some of the technologies that we are demonstrating, which is like a vision based system, a lighter, to try

to figure out what your piece of the ray is doing before you actually want to capture it.

STEVENS: OK, I want to quote some numbers to you. You probably know these numbers, but I'm sure viewers will be quite amazed. This is from the NASA

chase(ph) scientists for orbital debris. He says the U.S. or NASA has tracked about 23,000 large objects and there are also literally 10s of

millions of pieces of debris which are too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spacecraft.

My question to you, is if you were to spend a spacecraft up now, what are the chance, what are the odds that it could come into contact with a piece

of space junk? Is it still very, very small or is it now significant?

AGLIETTI: Listen, the chance is still very small. If you -- so far there have been only a handful of serious collisions, however, every now and then

the International Space Station has to do maneuver to avoid pieces of debris coming toward station. So, it is a problem that cannot be ignored,

let's put it this way.

Again, the probability of a large piece of debris being hit and triggering what is called the Kessler Syndrome is still very low. And just this

syndrome is when, let's say, two large pieces of debris collide with each other and then the produce debris that, in turn, collide with other pieces

and so you have a cascade affect. That is what we absolutely to prevent and there is still time to prevent that sort of cascade affect.

So, there is to remove just some larger pieces and keep the probability of these collisions still relatively low, because we want to be able to

operate satellites in space safely, like for (inaudible) for all the uses of satellite technology. Now we rely so much on the satellite

infrastructure, so the probability of these collisions and has to be careful of.

STEVENS: Yes, OK, we have to leave it there. And I guess also with China and India entering the space race as well, there's going to be a lot more

space junk up there. Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

AGLIETTI: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

STEVENS: And that is News Stream, thanks for joining me. I'm Andrew Stevens. Don't go anywhere, World Sports with Alex Thomas is just ahead.

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