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Philippines Accuses China Of "Brutal Assault" At Sea; Russian Court Hears Treason Case Against U.S.-Russian Citizen; AI Is Replacing Human Tasks Faster Than You Think; 2 Beluga Whales Evacuated From Ukraine War Zone. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 20, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And then slashing their rubber boat.

This is just the latest in a series of confrontations in that highly contested waterway.

And as CNN's Ivan Watson reports, the United States could soon find itself in the middle.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(SIREN)

(SHOUTING)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A high seas confrontation that could ignite a war. In the middle is a boat belonging to U.S. ally, the Philippines, sandwiched by the China Coast Guard in the heavily contested South China Sea on Monday.

Footage released by the armed forces of the Philippines shows its uniformed sailors attempting to fight back.

(SIREN)

WATSON: Some Chinese Coast Guard personnel armed with axes and knives. But Beijing says the Philippines started it.

LIN JIAN, CHINA MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS (through translation): Law enforcement measures taken by the China Coast Guard at the site were professional and restrained.

WATSON: China says it seized guns and ammunition from the Philippines ship, which was enroute to the Second Thomas Shoal. It is in Manila's exclusive economic zone, but Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea for itself.

In March, I was on board a Philippine Coast Guard ship on one of these routine trips. Chinese Coast Guard ships swarmed the Philippine ship.

(on camera): It is just after sunrise, and as you may see, there is a large Chinese Coast Guard ship directly in front of this Philippines Coast Guard vessel.

(voice-over): A Chinese Coast Guard ship blasted another Philippine boat with water cannons.

Monday's clash marks a clear escalation with multiple Philippine servicemen injured.

Just last month, the Philippine President drew this red line.

FERDINAND MARCOS, JUNIOR, PHILIPPINES PRESIDENT: If a Filipino citizen is killed by a willful act, that is, I think, very, very close to what we define as an act of war, and therefore we will respond accordingly.

WATSON: If that happens, the United States could be called to help the Philippines.

And some experts argue Manila already has grounds to invoke its mutual defense treaty with the U.S., which has increased its military presence in the Philippines, angering China.

RAY POWELL, GORDIAN KNOT CENTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY INNOVATION: The Philippines would be perfectly within its rights under the treaty to go to the United States and say this meets the terms of Article III, we need your help. And enter into those formal high-level consultations about what is to be done.

WATSON: In a call with his Filipino counterpart this week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. commitment to defending the Philippines is ironclad.

This simmering maritime dispute now threatens to boil over with all the potential for a much greater contract.

Ivan Watson, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Ivan for that report.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: An amateur ballerina accused of committing treason in Russia is now on trial behind closed doors in an area more than 1,000 miles from Moscow.

A Los Angeles resident, Ksenia Karelina, was detained in January, accused of donating just about $50 to a Ukrainian charity in the U.S.

The U.S.-Russian dual national is now facing up to 20 years in prison.

CNN chief global affairs correspondent, Matthew Chance, is joining us now from Russia's capital.

Matthew, what happened in court today?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, hi. It's just another example of how dangerous it's become for U.S. citizens inside Russia.

Now, Ksenia Karelina is a dual national. She's got a Russian passport as well. She was in that city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,000 miles from Moscow, visiting a family. She lives in Los Angeles. She's a beautician, as mentioned, an amateur ballerina.

The Russian authorities arrested her at the beginning of this year because, as you say, she donated just over $50, $50 to a U.S.-based charity, a Ukraine charity based in the United States. And for that, she's being accused of treason.

Now, it just gives you an indication of how much of a hard line Russia is taking when it comes to the decent over what it calls its Special Military Operation, the conflict in Ukraine.

The fact that she is a U.S. citizen as well as a Russian citizen may have complicated the matter as well. Because relations between the two countries are at historic lows.

And there is deep suspicion on the Russian side of the intentions of Americans in the country. And so that may have played into this as well.

If it all goes wrong as this trial continues, she could get a very long prison sentence, indeed, 20 years, you mentioned. Actually, it could be life imprisonment, is the maximum because Putin recently changed the laws to increase the sentence for treason.

[14:35:06]

So this is a very serious situation, indeed, for this young woman.

KEILAR: What does Russia want here, some kind of exchange?

CHANCE: Well, I think maybe, yes. It definitely wants to send a message that it won't tolerate this kind of dissent. But you're right, an exchange possibly.

And Russia has been -- you know, Putin's critics sort of building up a sort collection. It's been collecting Americans that it can use as bargaining chips for trades in the future.

Evan Gershkovich, his trial for espionage, the "Wall Street Journal" reporter. That starts next week.

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine. He's serving a long prison sentence in Russia on what the U.S. government says are trumped up charges of spying as well. There are others, too.

Russia wants a swap. It wants people that -- wants a specific person in particular it wants exchanged for these individuals. And we're talking about an FSB officer who's held in Germany on murder, convicted of murder there.

It is holding out for a big swap that would see its FSB officer brought back to Russia. KEILAR: All right. We'll be keeping an eye on this.

Matthew, thank you for the latest there.

And still ahead, AI is replacing humans faster than you think. We'll explain next.

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[14:41:00]

KEILAR: So our robot overlords may be taking over faster than you'd think. Corporate America is moving speedily to adopt artificial intelligence. A recent survey finds 46 percent, nearly half, of large U.S. firms plan to use AI within the next year to do work that was previously done by humans.

And it's not just the easy things. It can mean invoices, financial reporting, writing news releases, and building marketing campaigns.

Companies say they want more quality and they want more output, but they also want to cut the cost and complications of human workers.

Let's discuss with CNN media correspondent and real-life human, Sara Fischer. She's also a senior media reporter for Axios.

All right. What's happening here is AI just taking all of the human jobs away? How's this shift going to look and what are the risks here?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's actually a little bit more gradual than that. So what you're going to see is AI is going to be used to make points of friction in the supply chain go away.

And that can be in any job function, whether it's manufacturing or if it's in a white-collar type of role, but it's not going to replace so many jobs just yet for a few reasons.

One, AI is still so new. So part of what we're going to have to do is add humans to actually run and manage the AI.

The other thing is that AI has a lot of safety and sort of guardrail concerns. And so we're going to need humans to help build applications so that we can manage it correctly.

So I actually don't think that we're going to see a net loss of jobs in the near future. What you're going to see is jobs transitioning to be managing the workforce with AI?

The question, though, becomes, what are the lever implications of that, right? Especially for unionized jobs. If you're going to have to change your role, do you get paid the same?

Do you want to have a different type of type of job? That's the actual concern in the near future.

KEILAR: I mean, and AI, to be clear, it's already integrated into our lives. And obviously, if not yet, soon the workplace as well. We're talking about that.

The regulations in these cutting-edge kinds of things tend to lag. From a regulatory standpoint, do you think that were ready for this?

FISCHER: We're definitely not ready. And there are hundreds of bill ideas being proposed in Congress and almost nothing has been passed.

And the reason for that, Brianna, is because this is so new and foreseen and not really well understood on the Hill, it's kind of hard to figure out how we're going to even regulate it.

And so what's happening is companies are adopting this at a very fast clip, but we do not have some sort of broader policy idea about how are we going to manage this for society.

You know, not just jobs, but things like managing bias, things like managing innovation, things like managing waste. All those things need to be addressed.

As we completely shift society around AI, not only are we not ready, we also have this as a global problem. Like a lot of other countries are trying to figure out rules and all of these rules are very different.

So if you're a big global company, you're trying to implement AI to adhere to some standards in some countries, some standards that don't exist in others. It's going to be very messy and complicated in the near term.

KEILAR: Certainly is.

Sara, thank you so much for taking us through that. We do appreciate it.

[14:44:18]

And still ahead, how do you move two huge whales out of a war-torn city? A team of specialists actually did this and they're joining us with a whale of a tale, next.

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[14:48:58]

SANCHEZ: On Capitol Hill, this is being described as one of the most complex and daring Marine mammal rescues ever attempted. Two endangered beluga whales were rescued from an aquarium in the heart of war-torn Ukraine by a team of experts from around the world.

KEILAR: Plombir is a 15-year-old male and Miranda is a 14-year-old female. And they're said to be in delicate health after what was a grueling 36-hour journey that took them more than 1,900 miles, bringing them to Europe's largest aquarium in Valencia, Spain, early Wednesday morning.

SANCHEZ: We're joined now by members of the rescue team from Valencia, Spain, Daniel Garcia-Parraga, from the Valencia Aquarium, Dennis Christen, from the Georgia Aquarium, and Keith Yip, from SeaWorld.

Thanks to the three of you for being with us.

Whoever wants to answer, how are Plombir and Miranda doing right now?

DANIEL GARCIA-PARRAGA, DIRECTOR OF ZOOLOGICAL OPERATIONS, VALENCIA AQUARIUM: Well, I mean, they are well. I mean, they just arrived and are waiting for their habitat. But I think they are quite fine for that fifth day. They really have to carry on with us. So I think it's they're doing great.

[14:50:07]

Certainly, Danny and Keith have much more experience transporting beluga whales. But in my experience, these animals, I'm greatly surprised that they are, for this the few hours that they are with us here in Valencia, they are doing quite reasonably well.

KEILAR: So This was, Keith, a long journey. It went through many countries. Obviously, not the easiest of trips here. Just walk us through the challenges and the logistics for moving these belugas to safety.

KEITH YIP, ANIMAL CARE SPECIALIST, SEAWORLD: Yes, it was -- this transport was 36 hours pool the pool. And that's kind of, that's on the long side. I've done many Marine mammals, cetaceans, whales, dolphin transports, and this is one of the long ones.

It's very complex because these animals came from Ukraine via truck. So they were -- had quite a long journey. And its warm conditions and rough roads and then the transfer at the border was unique thing.

Thank goodness that there's a lot of preparation. So that it was expedited. And really half the expected time through the border. So that went well.

And then working through an airport that was relatively small and didn't have a lot of infrastructure that we're used to. And so that created some challenges.

But the aircraft was great. And it just was -- there were a lot of elements in here that were unique.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I mean, you could say that again, just watching the video.

And, Dennis, I imagine even having had experience in transporting animals like this in the past, doing it in a place that's at war, that's being actively invaded, that has to add an extra layer of urgency.

DENNIS CHRISTEN, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF ANIMAL WELLBEING & BEHAVIOR, GEORGIA AQUARIUM: Yes, absolutely. Urgency and complexity as well. Because Keith and I have worked together quite a bit in moving these types of animals, but we're pretty detail-oriented to make sure that it goes as well as can be expected. And the details on the front end of this were really hard to assemble

because we getting information and little blips. The timeframe was very urgent. Getting resources, equipment, supplies to Kharkiv was almost impossible.

And just we had to adapt our approach to be able to move these animals in a safe manner as possible with whatever resources we had available.

So it was a very MacGyver-type scenario where we just kind of had to go outside of our comfort zone to make sure that were able to pull this off and work together with an amazing team.

And can't say enough about the Ukrainian staff that were caring for those animals and getting them really to the border where we were able to help take them the rest of the way.

KEILAR: Yes. They've been caring them for all this time.

And we just want to tell our viewers, they -- these whales were in a situation where strikes were happening near their enclosures. So they were very much in peril.

And it's just amazing that they're now out of that situation.

Daniel Garacia, can you talk a little bit about the delicate health and what that means and what that means for the long term or if these are just short-term concerns?

GARCIA-PARRAGA: Yes, well, basically, before this kind of transports, we always check the animals first and be sure that the animals are in very good medical conditions and basically in a good immune status to tolerate distress of the transport.

Because of course, getting the animals out of the medium and moving them into another place for adaptation and it means some level of stress.

And in this case, we were totally blind. So basically, we were -- we had some reports from their blood work in Ukraine with some basic data. But we really need to proceed with quite deep sampling as soon as they arrived here in their new habitat before putting them with the other whales.

And taking up the generally status and all infectious diseases that could be transmitted to our -- our other whales.

So generally we were greatly surprised that besides the stress and exposure, these animals to the bomb being, the noises. They were telling us that sometimes they were maintaining half diet to guarantee that the fish supplies stay as long as possible in case they will not receiving any further fish.

The water temperature there in Ukraine was really high because they losed the capacity to chill the waters. They were 26 degrees. That is I think equivalent 77 Fahrenheit. That is pretty high for beluga whales. They are Arctic animals. [14:55:10]

So the animals were somehow compromised at different levels. But whenever we take -- take them up here, as soon as they arrive, and based on the preliminary results, they are quite OK.

They are a little bit slim. Certainly, are belugas and we believe that we keep the requirements are in a better body condition, I would say. But so far, I mean, the animal seems to be adapting well. The male is eating already and we will hope that we managed to recover them good.

KEILAR: Yes. Well, that is good news. It sounds like you can move that away from delicate health to doing pretty well here soon.

Daniel Garacia, Dennis, Keith, amazing work.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I wonder who's going to play them in this Free Willy sequel.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: I really look forward to this. This is amazing, gentlemen.

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-PARRAGA: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: And still ahead, one week from now, Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off in what could be the most important night before the election. We have some new CNN reporting on how each side is preparing.

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