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First Move with Julia Chatterley
Israel's "New Era" of War; At Least 20 Dead in Walkie-Talkie Blasts; Hezbollah Vows Retaliation on Israel; Sean "Diddy" Combs Second Bail Appeal Rejected; Federal Reserve Cut Rates by Half a Percent; U.S. Central Bank First Rate Cut in Four Years; Walkie-Talkie Blasts in Lebanon; Iran Hackers Sent Stolen Trump Campaign Information to Biden Campaign; Gradiant Recycling 99 Percent of Industrial Water Waste; Pierre Cardin Getting Involved in Spacesuits of the Future; London Mayor Plans to Ban Traffic on Oxford Street. Aired 6-7p ET
Aired September 18, 2024 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[18:00:00]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: It's 1:00 a.m. in Beirut, 6:00 a.m. in Taipei, and 6:00 p.m. here in New York. I'm Julia Chatterley. And
wherever you are in the world, this is your "First Move."
A warm welcome to "First Move," as always. And here's today's need to know. A new era of war. Israel's warning amid more device explosions in Lebanon,
killing 20 people and wounding hundreds more. Diddy denied. Sean Combs will remain in custody after his second bail attempt is rejected. Cutting with
confidence, the Federal Reserve chopping rates by half a percent, saying they can support jobs and contain inflation. And a water wonder. The
company that says it can recycle up to 99 percent of industrial water waste. That conversation and plenty more coming up.
But first, a new era of war. That's the promise from Israel's defense minister. His comments follow two days of explosions across Lebanon
targeting the militant group Hezbollah.
Wednesday's detonations targeted walkie-talkies. It's the first time Israel appeared to tactically knowledge a role in the attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YOAV GALLANT, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): I think the IDF has made excellent achievements together with the ISA and Mossad. The
results of their work are impressive. We know how important it is at this time to carry out our activities in close cooperation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: At least 32 people have been reported killed in Lebanon over the past two days with thousands more injured. Ben Wedeman is in Beirut
where many of the explosions took place and he joins us now. Ben, an astonishing couple of days. I think lots of individuals tonight looking at
anything electrical and wondering if that's next, which is part of what apparently was the mission here and that's to spread fear.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And it certainly has spread fear, Julia. Many people very concerned about the level of Israel's
operations, which are not limited to the war zone, but we've seen -- what we've seen between yesterday and today, literally hundreds, perhaps
thousands of explosions going off well away from the border area that has been the focus of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
Today, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the number of people killed in these walkie-talkie blasts has reached at least 20 with 450
injured. And certainly, what this is -- the effect this is having is to spread real fear and panic among the population here.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (voice-over): A funeral for those killed a day before is disrupted by another explosion. A wave of walkie-talkie blasts across Lebanon killed
more than a dozen and injured hundreds Wednesday. Coming barely 24 hours after hundreds of pagers blew up across the country at food markets and
shops killing at least 12 people, including two children and injuring around 2,800 others in what CNN sources say was an attack by Israel's
Mossad and military against Hezbollah, unprecedented in its scale and nature.
Outside the American University of Beirut hospital, distressed family members wait for updates on their loved ones.
WEDEMAN: Friends and relatives of the injured don't want to speak on camera, but off camera, one told us, for instance, that a friend of his
received a message on his pager. He looked at it, and the pager blew up in his face, damaging his eyes and his fingers. And in fact, the chief medical
officer here told us the majority of the injuries are to the eyes, to the hands, and the hips, where, of course, people were holding their pagers.
DR. SALAH ZEIN-EL-DINE, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT MEDICAL CENTER: We received around 200 patients and we received
them in a very short time, about, you know, within an hour or two, almost all of them went inside our doors. So, this stretched us pretty much too
thin.
[18:05:00]
WEDEMAN (voice-over): A Lebanese security source says the militant group bought the devices that exploded in recent months from a Taiwanese company,
Gold Apollo. However, Gold Apollo denies manufacturing the devices and says a distributor in Hungary is responsible. A Taiwanese security official said
there's no record the pagers were shipped to Lebanon or anywhere in the Middle East.
Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate a message echoed by one of the group's lawmakers.
HUSSEIN HAJ HASSAN, HEZBOLLAH LAWMAKER (through translator): The resistance will continue. The support for Gaza will continue, and the
Israelis will regret what they have done.
WEDEMAN (voice-over): The tension between Israel and Hezbollah is nothing new. For most of the past year, cross-border skirmishes have been common.
These device explosions represent a new level of escalation.
And Wednesday, Israel's defense minister said the explosions mark a new era in Israel's war against Hezbollah. Worried citizens are now suspicious of
everyday devices, including one found in a parking lot near a busy hospital. Security detonated it in a controlled explosion.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (on camera): And CNN has learned that Israel, before Tuesday's exploded pager blasts, informed the United States that it would be carrying
out an operation in Lebanon without providing the details of what that operation would be. So, American officials are claiming this was a complete
surprise in terms of the scope of the attacks, but it also coincides with yet another trip to the Middle East by U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken who is trying to work out some sort of road -- a road map to a ceasefire in Gaza, and this sort of escalation by Israel really represents
something of a blindsiding of Blinken yet again, while he's trying to work out some sort of diplomatic solution to this now 11-month-old conflict,
Julia.
CHATTERLEY: And, Ben, also, I was watching that report and you obviously spoke to a lawmaker there from Hezbollah and he said the Israelis will
regret this. How does -- in light of the backdrop that you've just pointed to and the ongoing ceasefire negotiations, how does Hezbollah respond to
this? Try and overcome some element of the embarrassment and the fact that they got caught off guard here. How and can they achieve that?
WEDEMAN: Well, I think that's the question everybody is asking, because between the 30th of July assassination by Israel of Fuad Shukr in Southern
Beirut, he was Hezbollah's senior military commander. Killed at about 7:30 in the evening. Combine that with the operations, the attacks of the last
two days, it certainly represents a serious failing by Hezbollah's intelligence and security apparatus, which until quite recently was well
regarded, even by its enemies.
Now, it's now so compromised, the question is, what can it actually do when it comes to making good on its vows of revenge against Israel? Julia.
CHATTERLEY: We'll continue to watch. Ben Wedeman in Beirut there for us tonight. Thank you.
Let's talk more about this. Firas Maksad is senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and he joins us now. Sir, good to have you with us. As we
were discussing there, Israel's defense minister called this a new era of war that's just beginning. What do you make of this attack and do you see
it as a prelude to something bigger?
FIRAS MAKSAD, SENIOR FELLOW, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, GWU ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC
OUTREACH, MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE: Yes, Julia, if -- on October 7th, the Israeli Intelligence Services came across as Johnny English, completely
dumbfounded and dumbstruck. Today, they look like James Bond, carrying out an attack in Lebanon, reaching hundreds of walkie-talkies on the heels of
thousands of pagers the day before. So, this is no doubt kind of a new threshold of violence that is being brought by Israel and a breakthrough in
terms of its ability to penetrate deep into Hezbollah's networks both in Lebanon, but also in Syria next door where some of these Hezbollah
operatives are.
So, this is no doubt a significant blow to Hezbollah and a success to Israel. The question is, what comes next? It makes very little strategic
sense if Israel stops here. This has all the hallmarks of an operation that is a prelude for a broader campaign. A broader campaign that now the
Israeli defense minister is kind of signaling and hinting might come to follow in the days and weeks ahead.
CHATTERLEY: How do they seize the moment then, to your point, about this, indeed, being some kind of prelude and do they wait for Hezbollah to
respond or do they use this moment where they're caught off guard and perhaps trying to recover themselves to, to continue this and push on?
[18:10:00]
MAKSAD: Well, I mean, logic would say that time is not in Israel's favor right now. Hezbollah is caught completely off balance. It's very difficult
for a military organization like Hezbollah to carry any kind of coordinated offensive, let alone a defense, against an Israeli offensive if it cannot
communicate it, if it is largely blinded by the fact that they now do not trust each other. They don't know where the moles are in the system. They
don't really have an effective command and control structure anymore.
But Hezbollah is also a very effective organization. One can expect it to recover pretty quickly. So, Israel will need to move fast. It wants to take
advantage of this element of surprise. Obviously, this is not the only factor at play here. It is in the process of moving forces from the Gaza
Strip in the south up to the north.
There's also pressure coming from Washington. Washington is extremely here. U.S. officials very frustrated with their Israeli counterparts and somewhat
embarrassing that President Biden's envoy was in Israel on Monday, and he had barely left Tel Aviv when Israel, in fact, carried out the first of
these attacks.
So, a great deal of frustration here by the Biden administration and the fact that Israel has decided to broaden its war in Lebanon.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, the U.S. and France have been furiously working on some kind of better security arrangement in the south of Lebanon now for
months. Can you see a path from this moment to achieve that, perhaps utilizing this moment to get there? Because everything, of course, still
contingent, or at least has been to this stage in Hezbollah's mind on that ceasefire negotiations, which, as you said, sort of embarrassingly taking
place at the same time.
MAKSAD: Yes, and that's part of the reason why President Biden's envoy, Amos Hochstein, was in Tel Aviv. Mr. Hochstein has pretty much pre-
negotiated a deal here between Hezbollah on one hand and Israel on the other that would see a new security arrangement in place in Southern
Lebanon. Hezbollah would withdraw a certain number of kilometers from the border. Israel would withdraw and redeploy from some of the 13 points
disputed along that border.
But the problem and the challenge has been that Hezbollah and Iran, its patron, have refused to make good on that deal. Absent a ceasefire in Gaza
that would bring relief to their ally, Hamas. And that is, of course, something that we all know is not in the off thing, the ceasefire in Gaza,
the talks are completely deadlocked.
So, the preconditioning that Iran and Hezbollah have put in place have essentially allowed this to escalate. And in the weeks -- in the days and
weeks ahead, I think Hezbollah faces a very difficult choice. Will it accept to decouple the Lebanon front from the Gaza front, or will it risk
sinking Lebanon and its military capabilities along with it in a devastating war with Israel?
CHATTERLEY: Which way do you think it goes? I apologize for putting you on the spot, but that is a pivotal, difficult choice.
MAKSAD: If we had a crystal ball, I think we'd be in a much better place.
CHATTERLEY: Yes.
MAKSAD: But do you think that we are all going to be anticipating what Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah will have to say in a much-
anticipated speech tomorrow, 5:00 p.m. Beirut time. He is He's cornered, he's embarrassed, but at the same time, there are quite a bit of
limitations in terms of the political and military realities that he has to deal with. And Hezbollah and the Iranians are rational actors.
And so, he will try to thread that needle. But I would bet that some kind of escalation, some kind of Hezbollah retaliation would be deemed
necessary.
CHATTERLEY: We'll certainly watch that speech tomorrow. For now, thank you so much. Great to have you on the show and good to get your wisdom. Firas
Maksad there, the senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.
All right. Let's move on. Sean "Diddy" Combs will remain in jail as he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. In
the past hour, a federal judge in New York denied his appeal to be released on bail. Prosecutors accused Combs of running a criminal enterprise that
involves sexual abuse, forced labor, and kidnapping.
Now, he denies the charges and his attorneys were offering an extensive bail package. The judge ruled there were no conditions that reduce the risk
of witness tampering or obstruction. Our Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig is here with more on the developments. Elie, I was watching you earlier today.
You absolutely called this.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Well, Julia, I've done a few of these in my
day. I think when you look at the indictment itself and the other paperwork that prosecutors put in, the nature of the charges against Sean Combs here
are so extensive and so serious that I think any defendant, even if he wasn't well known, would immediately be locked up for these charges. We're
talking about racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, arson, drugs, guns, you name it. Ordinarily, that is a prime candidate to be locked up with no
bail.
[18:15:00]
That's what happened with Sean Combs here today. I wasn't surprised by it. Important to note, though, Julia, this is not necessarily the end of it.
Sean Combs can still go to one more layer. He can ask the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider. But it's very rare that they will overturn
a trial judge's bail determination.
CHATTERLEY: Very quickly, can he go to the Supreme Court after that, too?
HONIG: He can try, but he has a precisely 0.0 percent chance of getting them to take the case. The Supreme Court would not get involved in a bail
determination.
CHATTERLEY: OK. Fine. His lawyer told our Kaitlan Collins, I think, last night that they'll go to trial. So, effectively ruling out some kind of
plea deal here. I guess that makes sense when you look at the seriousness of the charges in this case. What are we looking at if he's found guilty?
HONIG: Boy, if he's found guilty, the statutory minimum, the absolute lowest amount of time he could be sentenced to is 15 years in prison.
There's the maximum of life, but it's really more instructive to look at the minimum because that's what really matters. And when you hear about
time in the federal system, you will hear sometimes in the state system, somebody will be sentenced to, let's say 15 years, but they'll be released
on parole in three years, five years. That's not how it works in the federal system.
In the United States federal system, whatever you're sentenced to, you will serve at least 85 percent of. The most you can get off is 15 percent for
good time. So, if Sean Combs goes to trial and gets convicted, he will do at least 13 years or so, no matter what. So, the stakes are enormous here.
And it didn't surprise me to hear Sean Combs' defense lawyer, say to Kaitlan last night that he expects to go to trial because I just don't see
a middle ground here. I don't see prosecutors willing to give him a substantially lower deal, and I don't see Sean Combs being willing to plead
to a charge that would put him behind bars for a long time.
CHATTERLEY: How long do you think it takes to get to the point where they go to trial, Elie, at this stage? And can you describe where he's staying?
I know at the moment, at least, he's in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, which has all sorts of concerning qualities, according to what I've
read.
HONIG: Yes, it's a great question. We are not close to trial at this point. Typically, a federal case with some complexity like this one takes
at least a year to get to trial. So, it won't happen before the new year, maybe at some point in 2025.
Sean Combs will now be housed until his trial, however long that takes, at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the MDC, which is in Brooklyn. I have
been in there many times talking to witnesses as a prosecutor. All prisons are hellacious. But boy, the MDC is among the worst of the worst. It is
overpopulated, it is overcrowded, it is understaffed, it's hot, it's filthy.
There have actually been federal judges who have reduced sentences because the person will have to serve it there, or who have given people bail
because the conditions there are so brutal. So, that's the hard reality that Sean Combs now faces. I think it's likely he will be held in a special
unit for inmates to protect them from other inmates. There is a floor in that unit that he may be kept on, but the conditions are really no better
there.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, but different to what he's used to. Elie, great to have you with us on the show. Thank you.
All right. Straight ahead, Jerome Powell and company go for a supersized half a percentage point rate cut. More cuts on the way too. We'll discuss
the implications.
Plus, the company that appears to be in the know for all things H2O. Why Fortune 500 companies turn to Gradiant to help them conserve water and help
protect the environment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:20:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to today's Money Move. A choppy day on Wall Street as the Federal Reserve made its first rate cut in four years, and it
was a sizable one. The Fed slashing rates by half a percentage point and hinting that there's more cuts to come. One Fed member dissented favoring a
mere quarter percentage point cut, mirroring the debate in the financial markets over just how much easing is appropriate.
Stocks initially spiked higher on the news but gave up all their gains by the close after digesting, I think, the change in forecasts. Fed members
are more worried about growth than they were just three months ago. Fed Chair Jay Powell calling today's move a recalibration of Fed policy
intended to help the jobs market.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIR, U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE: We've been very patient about reducing the policy rate. We've waited. Other central banks around the
world have cut, many of them, several times. We've waited. And I think that that patience has really paid dividends in the form of our confidence that
inflation is moving sustainably under 2 percent.
So, I think that is what enables us to take this strong move today. I do not think that anyone should look at this and say, oh, this is the new
pace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: That's called managing the message. Three months ago, the Fed members were forecasting just one rate cut this year. Now, they see
themselves lowering rates by a full percentage point both this year and next. And we're less than two months out, too, from a presidential
election. A fact not lost on the former president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I guess it shows the economy is very bad to cut it by that much. Assuming
they're not just playing politics, the economy would be very bad, or they're playing politics, one or the other, but it was a big cut.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Richard Quest joins us now. Richard, we did the mea culpa on your show. So, we're not going to do it again.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" AND CNN BUSINESS EDITOR- AT-LARGE: Donald Trump is sort of right, in a sense.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, he is. Oh, yes.
QUEST: I mean, it's -- there's no -- it's either playing politics or you've cut by half a point because things are worse marginally than you
thought they were going to be. Things are worse and you need to stimulate. And that, I think, is an inescapable position.
Jay Powell is sitting uncomfortably, as he sort of says, well, we've waited a long time, but we've done a half a point because we think we can do it
and it's not a crisis, but it's not a panic, but it is an aggressive move.
CHATTERLEY: It's an accidental position to find yourself in cutting rates into a presidential election, though they could have started earlier,
Richard. That's now maybe a moot point. But I think you do raise a good one, which is we are more concerned than we were three months ago, even if
growth is still at 2 percent if inflation is contained, now, they're going to go all guns blazing to try and prevent the unemployment rate from rising
too much further. Looks like a soft landing to me if they can do it.
QUEST: If they can do it, because what he's leaning into is the snowball going down the hill. Five and a quarter percent interest rates, 11 hikes in
a short period of time. That is the snow -- let me mix the metaphors beautifully, because, of course, the snowball wouldn't survive in the oven.
So, either the snowball is running down the hill and needs to be slowed down, or the cake is baking in the oven and needs to be taken out.
Whichever one you like, the look off, that's what this half a percentage point is designed to do. Plus, two more.
He admitted, Jay Powell, today that if they'd had the numbers on employment earlier, they could have gone in July. Could have, should have, would have.
At the end of the day. I don't think it's a crisis, it's just a sort of make haste.
CHATTERLEY: It's a baked Alaska that combines your snow-ish with the baking analogy, Richard.
QUEST: When did you last bake? When did you last make a baked Alaska?
CHATTERLEY: Never made one.
QUEST: Me too.
CHATTERLEY: It's my mother's specialty though. Fantastic. I want to -- so, where does this leave us, Richard? Because we are less than two months out
now from a presidential election. They're saying that they need to do or can do another half a percentage point cut.
[18:25:00]
They've got two meetings in which they can do it. The next meeting, two days after the presidential election.
QUEST: Yes. This is either a politics or not, depending on your political point of view. It'll have absolutely zero, zilch, rien effect on the
election. None whatsoever.
CHATTERLEY: Oh, really? I disagree.
QUEST: What?
CHATTERLEY: Does this not at the margin help the incumbent lowering interest rates --
QUEST: Oh, no, no. sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You're playing politics. I'm talking economics.
CHATTERLEY: I love playing politics. Oh, OK.
QUEST: I'm having -- I'm talking about it'll have no economic effect on between now and the election. You'd agree with me on that, at least.
CHATTERLEY: Go on then.
QUEST: I'll take that. Chalk one up for up for Quest. Politics. You see, even here I'm tempted to disagree with you. With -- because Trump
supporters will say politics, politics, politics. The Harris supporters will say, no, I see no evil here. But everybody's already pretty much down
and dirty on this.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. I mean, but I think that's perhaps more about the individuals. I think arguably you could say that we're entering a rate
cutting cycle and that engender some degree of optimism about the future and maybe that translates to the Harris campaign and the White House.
QUEST: Do we get negative growth, even if it's just for a month or two? That is something it will which will be of interesting because the snow
ball --
CHATTERLEY: No.
QUEST: What?
CHATTERLEY: No.
QUEST: I'll bet you a bake -- no, I'm not going to bet you a baked Alaska.
CHATTERLEY: Go on. Bet me, bet me. Go on.
QUEST: No, no, no. Not a baked Alaska. No, no. I'll end up whipping meringue.
CHATTERLEY: Only if you cook it.
QUEST: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: Thank you. You're wrapping me. You'll get me into trouble. Thank you. Richard Quest, thank you.
Now, in our weather move, parts of Asia preparing for two tropical systems to make landfall on Thursday, Tropical Storm Pulasan will hit south of
Shanghai, while Tropical Depression 16 will hit Vietnam. Asia already dealing with the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi and Typhoon Bebinca.
Now, while both of the new weather systems are relatively weak, they will bring heavy rain and potential flooding to a region that needs a break.
Thank goodness Chad Myers is at the World Weather Center. And you can correct my terrible pronunciation of what's coming up, Chad, please.
CHAR MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You did just fine.
CHATTERLEY: OK. By accident.
MYERS: So, we are now -- we are seeing a storm that was last night a typhoon, Pulasan. This is the area here that has lost some of its energy in
the past couple of hours. So, we're not expecting it to make landfall as a typhoon. That's the storm right here headed towards Shanghai. And then,
here's the Storm 16 that still has about 18 hours in the water. It could get a name, but for now, it doesn't have one. It's kind of skirting the
coast, kind of paralleling it there.
Still a storm over Okinawa, that's where all the rainfall is right now. It will come around and kind of make a little hook around Shanghai and then
put a lot of rainfall into South Korea. We don't usually say South Korea when it comes to tropical systems, but it certainly does happen. And there
will be places there, especially Southern South Korea, that we'll see 250 millimeters, 10 inches of rainfall over the next two, maybe two and a half
days.
Now, we turn our attention to a place that has been very wet. And even though this is only a tropical depression, may it be good to name before it
comes on shore. This is an area that has seen well in excess of 500 millimeters of rainfall already this month. And now, we have a storm system
that's just going to spin around and make more rainfall in places that simply don't need it.
And if this was the first storm of the month here, this would be no big deal, but the fact that the ground is so saturated, Julia, there's just no
place for this to go other than down the hills and back into the valleys and then right through the streets as we saw with the last storm that
rolled right through in the same places.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. Fingers crossed people. Stay safe. Chad Myers, good to have you with us as always.
All right. Coming up after the break, a second day of deadly explosions in Lebanon. What Israel saying and how the rest of the world is responding,
that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:30:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move" with a look at more of the international headlines this hour. One of the largest, most influential
U.S. labor unions has declined to endorse a presidential candidate. It's the first time their Teamsters have remained neutral in nearly three
decades. It says neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump would pledge not to interfere in union campaigns and honor the right to strike.
The U.S. Justice Department is suing two corporations that owned and operated the contained ship that destroyed a bridge in Baltimore. It's
seeking more than a hundred million dollars, claiming that their cost cutting and negligence in the ship's maintenance led to what it calls an
entirely avoidable disaster.
Harvey Weinstein has pleaded not guilty in New York to a new sexual offence charge. The former movie mogul attended the hearing after emergency heart
surgery last week. Prosecutors want this new indictment added to Weinstein's retrial in New York on rape and sexual assault charges.
And returning once more to our top story now, at least 32 people have died in Lebanon following two days of explosions. The attacks targeting pages
and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah. The militant group has clashed with Israel repeatedly in recent months. On Wednesday, Israel's
defense ministry appeared to acknowledge Israel's role in the latest wave of attacks. However, questions remain about exactly how Israel carried out
the operation.
Earlier, the Lebanese foreign minister told our Christiane Amanpour he fears a regional war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDALLAH BOU HABIB, LEBANESE FOREIGN MINISTER: There is no doubt it's a scary moment and we are afraid for -- commit war because we don't want a
war. There were skirmishes on the borders, sometimes escalated, well, OK, accepted. But now, you're talking about a war. It's an introduction to a
war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: And we're learning more details, too, about the pages used in Tuesday's explosions. A source saying the devices were purchased from Gold
Apollo, a Taiwanese manufacturer. However, Gold Apollo strongly denies making them, instead shifting blame to a Hungarian firm. Will Ripley has
more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A new wave of explosions across Lebanon. This time, walkie-talkies being used for crowd
control, a security source tells CNN, one of them blew up during a funeral.
On Tuesday, it was beepers blowing up by the thousands. The shocking attacks triggering global investigations from the Middle East to Europe to
Asia. An urgent race to find out how simple communication devices, long abandoned by most of the world, ended up in Lebanon, becoming explosive,
deadly weapons.
[18:35:00]
BOB BAER, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: Getting into thousands of pagers, implanting explosives, detonators, switches, and the rest of it, and not
changing the weight of the pagers very much is a complicated operation and shows extraordinary technical ability.
RIPLEY (voice-over): A Lebanese security source says militant group Hezbollah bought the pagers in recent months, using them, ironically, to
prevent Israel and the U.S. from tracking their communications. Israel planted explosives next to each pagers' battery, along with a detonation
switch. The New York Times reports, citing U.S. and other officials, thousands of beepers blew up Tuesday, all receiving the same message at the
same time.
The pagers have the name AR-924, made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwanese company that calls its product extremely robust and durable. 85 days of battery
life. Fully charging in two and a half hours. A senior Taiwanese security official tells CNN Taiwan has no record of Gold Apollo pagers being shipped
to Lebanon. Records do show Gold Apollo shipped about 260,000 pagers from Taiwan, mainly to the U.S. and Australia over the past two and a half
years.
CNN went to the company headquarters in New Taipei City. We saw investigators going in and out. We also talked to the CEO. He strongly
denies making the explosive pagers bearing his company's name.
HSU CHING-KUANG, GOLD APOLLO FOUNDER (through translator): I have been in this industry for a long time. I don't want this to ruin our brand.
RIPLEY (voice-over): He blames this Hungarian distributor, BAC Consulting, claiming Gold Apollo sold them the rights to use its brand name. CNN tried
reaching BAC, no response. As families of the dozen dead in Lebanon say goodbye.
I was lucky to have you, my love, says the mother of nine-year-old Fatima. The pager went off as she was doing her homework on the first day of
elementary school.
Will Ripley, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: I want to turn to some breaking news now. The FBI unveiling new allegations of Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential
election. Evan Perez has the details. Evan, what can you tell us?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR U.S. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Julia, we knew that the FBI has previously said that the Iranian hackers had tried to
target both the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign. In the case of the Trump campaign, we know that the -- they had managed to breach the
campaign, obtained internal documents and then had sent them to news organizations in the United States.
Now, what we know from this latest update from the FBI is that they also took some of the excerpts of those Trump campaign documents and sent them
to people associated with what was then the Biden campaign. It appears that those people never opened the e-mails.
We're told also by the Harris campaign, Kamala Harris' campaign has, of course, taken over a lot of the personnel from the Biden campaign. What
they're saying is that the Iranian hackers appear to send this information to the personal e-mails of some of those campaign staffers and that they
never opened and nobody appeared to know that they had received this information.
Now, the reason -- you know, the reason for doing this, all of this, of course, according to the FBI and according to the U.S. intelligence
services is that the Iranians are simply trying to sow discord ahead of the presidential election. They are trying to, of course, get information from
the campaigns, they're trying to hack both of the campaigns. And the essential goal is to try to influence the U.S. election and, of course, to
sow some of that chaos ahead of the presidential vote.
Now, we also know that the FBI has been working on this case, and we expect in the coming days that we will hear about an indictment against people who
were believed to be behind this hack and leak campaign. It's a tactic, of course, that you know, was used back in 2016 very successfully by the
Russians, hacking the Democrats and the Clinton campaign just before the U.S. election then. Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, we know it well, Evan, and it's incredible that these things are still happening eight years later.
PEREZ: Absolutely.
CHATTERLEY: Evan Perez, great to have you with us. Thank you for that. Stay with CNN. We'll be back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:40:00]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to "First Move." Now, I don't want to drown you in statistics, but did you know the world consumes a whopping 4 trillion
cubic meters of fresh water every year? And actually, about a fifth of that is used by industry. My next guest works with the likes of Coca Cola, BMW,
and Pfizer to clean up and recycle their waste water, saving them 1.7 billion gallons a day. That's the equivalent to the needs of around 48
million people.
Boston-based Gradiant says its technology mimics how nature creates rain and recovers 99 percent of water versus competitors who recover far less.
To explain how, Anurag Bajpayee is the CEO and co-founder of Gradiant. It's just announced it's closed the first half of the year with over $500
million worth of new orders.
Anurag, great to have you on the show. Congratulations on those new orders. We'll talk about it soon. Start by talking about the technology, why yours
is different and so much more efficient than competitors?
ANURAG BAJPAYEE, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, GRADIANT: Thank you, Julia. It's a pleasure to be on your show. Gradiant is very much a tech company, Julia.
You mentioned one of our technologies that mimics the nature rain cycle, but Gradiant is unique in that, it's actually not built around one
technology. We offer a proprietary technology stack or a suite of technologies across the water value chain, as this point, backed by almost
300 patents.
This end-to-end technology stack allows us to develop bespoke customized solutions for our industrial customers so that we can maximize their clean
water recovery, reduce their cost, their water footprint, minimize energy consumption and the related carbon emissions. And in many cases, even
recover resources from that water.
So, I'll talk a little bit about that first technology you talked about, Carrier Gas Extraction. We actually started with this technology. This was,
in fact, the subject of my co-founders PhD work at MIT. Carrier Gas Extraction takes extremely contaminated water and treats it with very, very
high recovery, up to 98, 99 percent recovery, and produces very clean water, drinking quality water, or even, if needed, ultra-pure water that
can go into the likes of semiconductor manufacturing.
So, what we did here is we try to learn from nature. You know, rain -- the rain cycle, nature is a very good cleaner of water. When the winds blow
over the ocean, the winds pick up the vapor or, you know, form the clouds, leaving behind the salts and everything else that is in the seawater, when
those winds blow over land and then meet a mountain, they start rising and cool down and, in the process, release clean water as rain. So, that what
is some of the freshest cleanest water we know.
[18:45:00]
So, we actually tried to replicate that rain cycle, but in a much more space constraint and time efficient device. This system has really two-unit
operations, a humidifier and a dehumidifier, or you can think of them as the cloud maker and the rainmaker. So, in the cloud maker, we contact warm
water, warm contaminated water with air, the air picks up the vapor, the pure vapor, leaving behind the contaminants in a brine at the bottom of the
humidifier. And then, this moisture loaded air or the cloud goes into a bubble column dehumidifier.
So, what we're doing here is we're actually bubbling this cloud of -- you know, the mixture of air and vapor through already existing pools of clean
water that is at a lower temperature. In the process, the air cools down and releases that water that it had picked up, kind of like rain, and we
recover that fresh water, and then the cycle repeats itself.
CHATTERLEY: I mean, you mentioned that you've got other things going on, another layers to this as well, which I find incredibly exciting. You've
done a spin off alkali, I believe, which is being used to provide direct lithium extraction technology. And I think a lot of people will have heard
of lithium in the context of electric vehicle batteries.
Just talk to me about this. And I know one of the other really exciting things that caught my attention was forever chemicals, because you also
have, I believe, a unique way of purifying and taking out those forever chemicals, but destroying them at the same time, rather than perhaps
putting them in landfill or moving them somewhere else and destroying them. These are very exciting technologies, and if you can scale them, it's
pretty incredible. Talk to me about that, because I think the scalability of all of this is crucial for commercial use.
BAJPAYEE: Absolutely. See, Julia, I wanted to point out that Gradiant's a very different kind of water company. I would say Gradiant's about the only
company in water that has differentiated technology yet is operating profitably at scale.
You know, water has not seen much innovation in the last several decades, which is incredible because, you know, something as critical to our
existence, to our planet, as water has not seen nearly enough innovation, you know, compared to, for example, software or telecommunications, A.I.
So, we took a very, very new look, a very new fundamental look at how to solve water challenges, and in the process have developed this -- a number
of technologies, a number of layers, and that has, in turn, had applications in adjacent application. So, one of this is lithium
extraction.
So, for us, we started with taking lithium brines and then concentrating them. So, these are dilute solutions of lithium. We concentrate them so
that you can feasibly, you know, in an economically viable way, in an environmentally sustainable way, recover that lithium from that brine.
So, for us it was really just the water project. We were taking water out from that solution, but as it turned out, what was left behind in the
water, in this case, happened to be far more valuable in terms of dollar value and also energetic value than the water we recovered. So, the water
is good, but what's left behind, which is the lithium, is far, far more valuable.
So, we like to call ourselves an end-to-end solution provider. So, that wasn't enough for us. What we did is we went ahead and develop our own DLE
technology. So, which first prepares that brine for the concentration part. Then we concentrate the brine, which is really just the water processing
step and then we finally convert that lithium in the brine into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide. And we, therefore, bring this solution,
which we call EC squared or extract concentrate convert, an end-to-end solution to produce lithium from brines.
CHATTERLEY: OK.
BAJPAYEE: And there's a lot of brine -- lithium brine in the world which can really allow us to power this electric revolution, the EV revolution.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. And as you said, you're doing it profitably as well. The science geek in me is absolutely thrilled, the anchor in me is depressed
because I only got two questions, but I was so excited listening to you, I let you talk. So, we're going to have to continue this conversation again.
But congratulations on your work because clearly this is scalable and profitably scalable. It's crucial.
[18:50:00]
Great to talk to you, sir. The CEO and co-founder of Gradiant.
BAJPAYEE: Thank you.
CHATTERLEY: Have a wonderful evening. Thank you. All right. Still ahead, from catwalks to moonwalks. Why are one of the most famous fashion
designers in the world is looking out of this world for inspiration.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Call it a case of fashion taking flight in Paris. The Pierre Cardin company taking time out from designing stylish suits for here on
Earth to help him prepare for the catwalks of the future in space. Saskya Vandoorne has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN SENIOR FIELD PRODUCER (voice-over): A French fashion house is getting involved in space suits of the future. Designer label
Pierre Cardin has designed a training suit for European astronauts.
MATTHIAS MAURER, GERMAN ASTRONAUT: So, my name is Matthias Maurer. I'm a European astronaut, working at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne,
the only place where European astronauts train for space missions.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): The spacesuit's prototype has been unveiled in Paris at the Pierre Cardin Workshop. The goal was to create a suit for the
European Space Agency's new training ground for lunar missions, minus all the high-tech engineering needed in space.
MAURER: A spacesuit is like a small spaceship. It has air system. It has cooling systems. It has radio system. It has navigation system. It has a
lot of different equipment. This year is just for training. This is only to be used in Cologne on the ground. But we can learn a lot just training with
this suit.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): Pierre Cardin's grandnephew Rodrigo, who took over the company after the founder's death in 2020, developed comfortable,
movable fabrics that could withstand the extreme temperatures on the lunar surface.
RODRIGO BASILICATI-CARDIN, CEO, PIERRE CARDIN: I'm really so happy finally because, you know, after one year and a half to of this work to arrive here
and it's not finished, but it's a big step here.
VANDOORNE (voice-over): After additional tweaks, the suits will be used in Luna, which is the moon surface simulation building at the European Space
Agency base in Cologne, Germany. The simulations will continue ahead of their planned mission to the moon in 2028.
Saskya Vandoorne, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: I hate to say it, but they've got nothing on the SpaceX suits, assuming they work. Anyway, from looking good in outer space to giving the
world -- one of the world's most famous cities, a makeover too. London's Oxford Street could soon go car free under new plans announced by Mayor
Sadiq Khan. He wants to turn the iconic shopping strip, which attracts half a million tourists a day, into a pedestrianized public space. Anna Stewart
took a trip there to find out more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Imagine if Times Square had no cars. Well, that may soon happen here in London. Welcome to the shopping hub of
Oxford Street. This major intersection is where the Mayor of London would like to pedestrianize. But what do the locals think?
[18:55:00]
Banning cars on Oxford Street, yes or no?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
STEWART: That was a no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ban cars? Actually, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like it so much because it's full of people and like it's quite busy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a great idea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's going to affect all the businesses. Where would the buses and the cabs going to go? Terrible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get the traffic out of the city completely.
STEWART (voice-over): It's not the first time the mayor has proposed this. Plans were blocked by Westminster City Council in 2018.
SADIQ KHAN, LONDON MAYOR: Well, the difference this time is I've got the support of central government. And that means if, God forbid, there was
opposition from the council, we'd have the powers to proceed with good plans.
STEWART: The mayor still needs to get the green light from government, but in two years this may all be car free.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: Yes, that's a big street. No one wants to be walking that. I can tell you that's going to have a havoc effect on shopping. Apparently.
That's just about wrapping up the show. Thank you for joining us. I'll see you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:00:00]
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