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Quest Means Business

Lindsay Clancy Jury Deadlocked for a Sixth Day; DHL's European Air Cargo Hug Allegedly Targeted by Russia; Exploring the Global Gold Market; Nepal's Government Grapples with Steep Rebuilding Costs; Nvidia Says It Will Acquire Hugging Face. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired September 03, 2026 - 16:00   ET

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Thirty-five hours in now in front of Massachusetts. "The Arena" with Kasie Hunt starts in just a few seconds.

[16:00:15]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": On Wall Street, the closing bell is ringing. That's a strong day for the markets.

They are up across the board. No records, but a good solid session for the Dow Jones along with the others and bring trading to a close, sir or madam.

Who is hitting the gavel?

Come along, come along, come along and a one and a two. Oh, good Lord! They took that time, didn't they?

There you have the markets. Those are the markets and these are the main events.

A dramatic moment today in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, there was a clarification from the judge on the meaning of reasonable doubt.

Deliberations are now continuing.

The Nepali Finance Minister tells me governments and companies around the world are stepping up to offer financial support.

And the Dutch Central Bank is moving gold bars out of the U.S. to London. It is all part of what they are calling crisis preparedness. But what sort

of crisis?

Well, I am in New York. It is Thursday, September the 3rd. I am Richard Quest, and of course, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

Good evening.

Let's start with the sixth day of deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, and as the jury continues, there has been a development. A

short time ago, the jury sent a note to the court that included a request having problems with the term "reasonable doubt."

Now, jurors had already told the judge on two previous occasions they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. That was on Tuesday and Wednesday. So

after the judge got the note, he brought the jurors up one by one. He then read out loud the definition of reasonable doubt and sent the jury back off

again to keep deliberating.

However, the defense attorney took issue with one juror in particular.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN REDDINGTON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR LINDSAY CLANCY: The court has an instruction from the foreperson of that jury that's been working for a week

now, saying that there is one juror who refuses to listen to the law that you've given him or her on reasonable doubt, and I suggest, respectfully,

that the soft instruction that you gave them saying at the sidebar, "Can you listen to the law as I instruct you," does not focus on the issue, the

question is not sufficient enough.

JUDGE WILLIAM SULLIVAN, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS SUPERIOR COURT: I don't feel that it is proper for me to side with one side or the

other of the deliberations. I don't feel it is appropriate for me to say I agree with one juror or the 11.

At this point, I've asked if they are able to follow my instructions according -- they swore earlier that they could. They've said tonight at

this point that they can. That was specifically addressed towards the specific question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Kara Scannell is with me, to break this down.

At one level, this is, you know, high drama, but another level this is sort of everyday criminal trials. There is a juror that has a difficulty and we

don't know, by the way, whether it is a juror that wants to acquit or holding out of a conviction, but it is this knotty problem of what is a

reasonable doubt?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Richard.

We do see this come up in trials. In fact, this same issue came up in the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial, where the jury had said that they could not come

to a conclusion on one count. One juror wasn't following the law, and they ultimately did reach a decision on that one count.

So the overall concept is not uncommon, and these are difficult issues, deciding what is reasonable doubt and whether something has been proven

beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts here to prove their case, to get a guilty plea in this case.

So the jury has been deliberating for 35 days, twice; once yesterday, once the day before. They said they could not reach unanimous decision.

Now, this has progressed through the deliberations that continued all day today. It was around 2:30 that they sent this note to the judge. It took

some time to get everyone in the courtroom and for us to learn what this was about. But now we do know that there is one juror who is in

disagreement with the others around this question of reasonable doubt.

So that is where this focus is going to be. This is the end of the court day. So we do expect the jury to be getting sent home soon, and then they

will pick this up again tomorrow.

QUEST: Now, it is worth pointing out because other jurisdictions, I know in the U.K. for example, and elsewhere, do either have trial by judge or do

allow majority verdicts.

[16:05:09]

Ten one -- sorry, 10-two, 11-one. The U.S. does not constitutionally. We will talk about that with the professor in just a moment.

So if this one juror doesn't budge, it is a mistrial.

SCANNELL: Yes, Richard. More likely than not, if this juror does not budge, there will be a mistrial. It was a very unusual request for the defense

lawyers to ask for this juror to be removed. They do have a number of alternates in the wings, but that's not normally how these things play out.

The judge would stick with what the juror that has been deliberating has had, unless there is some issue with this juror that makes them unable to

continue, but the jury is not signaling that at this point.

They are saying that this is a question about reasonable doubt and whether that one juror is following the judge's instruction.

QUEST: I am grateful, Kara.

With me is the former Miami-Dade County Judge and law professor, Jeff Swartz.

Jeff, again, this is -- it is its sort of meat and potatoes at one side. I mean, what is a reasonable doubt? I don't know whether you heard the judge

giving the instruction. He read it pretty much boilerplate. I don't think he did a particularly good job of describing the concept of reasonable

doubt.

But it looks like this is heading to a mistrial one way or the other.

JEFF SWARTZ, FORMER MIAMI-DADE COUNTY JUDGE: Yes, I would -- Richard. I think that that's where it has been heading for quite a while now. There

are a lot of things that are wrong that have happened here. The first one is you're never supposed to know. You're never supposed to disclose the

jury or anybody else who finds out what the count is between the jurors when they send out a note, they are told not to do that -- and this is what

happened here.

Now, you have this real mess that has been created where you have a juror on one side or the other. The prosecution thinks its 11 to one for

conviction. The defense attorney thinks its 11 to one for an acquittal. He wants this juror gone. He is agreeing to go with only 11 jurors because he

thinks the other 11 are all on his side. That's not supposed to happen during jury deliberations.

The idea of what reasonable doubt is, is basically the same everywhere. It is not a forced out, it is not a doubt made of anything but a reasonable

look at all the evidence and determining whether, in fact, that all adds up to guilt.

QUEST: So, quick question, because in other jurisdictions, you can go for majority verdicts, 11-one; 10-two. After a certain amount of time, you

know, after 50 hours of deliberation, whatever it is, but that's not the case here.

SWARTZ: No, that's not the case here. In the United States, even though -- and there is a Supreme Court case that says in the finding of whether

someone is going to get the death penalty or not, it must be unanimous, if all other verdicts are unanimous.

In the United States, there are states that don't have 12 jurors. They only have six, like Florida. In some jurisdictions, like Louisiana, it only

takes four out of six to convict someone. It doesn't have to be unanimous on the guilt side of a case. That is up before the Supreme Court actually,

this coming term to determine whether jurors, juries have to be 12 persons, and they always have to be unanimous.

So, you know, that's a case called Apodaca versus Oregon and that may get us a finding.

QUEST: Now, bear with me. Bear with me, Professor, because it looks like the court is back in session. We are not -- were not sure -- we are going

to join the court case. Have a listen with me, sir.

SWARTZ: Okay.

QUEST: We should be able to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The court is now in session, please be seated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your Honor, present before the court, we have 12 deliberating jurors and six alternates on the matter of Lindsay Clancy. All

of the parties are present.

WILLIAMS: All right, well, good afternoon, everybody. What I am going to do is excuse you until tomorrow morning at 9:00, all right, and then, I will

speak to you at that point, uh, tomorrow morning. So remember the instructions that I've given you over and over again. Stay away from any

coverage about this. Don't talk about this case and I will see everybody tomorrow morning.

Okay. Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Court, all rise! Jurors, this way, please.

QUEST: All right, all right, well, there we are. That was a bit of -- you never know. You never know -- it could have been something, but it wasn't,

it is just basically excusing them for the day.

SWARTZ: The way I am seeing this and very candidly, having tried cases as a prosecutor, defense attorney and as a judge, this is very coercive if there

is just one juror to keep bringing them back and keep instructing them over and over again.

[16:10:10]

I personally look at everything that happened today and said, if this is a guilty verdict, it is going to get reversed. There is just no way this

verdict will stand even though the judge speaks in a soft tone, what he is doing is very coercive.

If at this point they don't have a verdict, it is time to call it the end and it is time to figure out whether we are going to try it again.

QUEST: Well, now you say that. You say that, but the judge does have --

SWARTZ: I do.

QUEST: But the judge has an obligation to the -- to A, make sure you know, he doesn't have. This was a long, expensive, difficult trial. Surely he

only wants to declare a mistrial when he is absolutely --

I mean, it is not unreasonable to deliberate for three or four days.

SWARTZ: Well, no, I have to tell you that there is another thing here, and that is that in Massachusetts, after they come back three times and say

they are hung, the judge must declare a mistrial unless the jury agrees to go back and deliberate some more.

We don't know that all of the jurors agreed to go back and deliberate. If I am the one person, I do not want to go back there and face the other 11

again. So there is a form of coercion that goes with it. That is why he is making things up and setting up procedures as he goes along, which are

contrary to Massachusetts law.

QUEST: I am trying to remember the movie, James here, one angry man or whatever it is --

SWARTZ: "Twelve Angry Men."

QUEST: Yes, "Twelve Angry Men." That's it. Here we've got it. Okay. What are you -- I can ask you this question because I don't think you're going

to answer it, and it might not be a proper question to ask anyway.

SWARTZ: Okay.

QUEST: Yes, which way do you think the jury is leaning?

SWARTZ: If I look at it objectively, having sat on the bench and listened to a lot of the testimony, it has been a long time that I have been

thinking in this case that it was going to be a hung jury. That's exactly the way I thought it would be.

I didn't think it would be 11 to one. I think it would be more deeply divided. I thought they were more deeply divided two days ago. So there has

probably been some movement. If I had to bet on it, I think it is probably because the state is so insistent on going forward and the defense is not.

There must be some indication that its 11 to one for a conviction.

QUEST: Oh, interesting. Interesting. All right. There we go.

Thank you, sir. I am grateful. But quick. Oh sorry, last time. Quick question. If it is declared a mistrial, will the prosecution go for a

retrial?

SWARTZ: The numbers count as to which way it went if it is a mistrial, I think the state does not want to do this again. She doesn't want to do it

again. I think that that's when I think over a two-week period of time before they come back to set a trial date, that some sort of agreement will

be reached. I don't know exactly what it will be, but some sort of agreement will be reached.

QUEST: Arguably the sort of agreement that should have been reached in the first place.

Good to see you, Jeff. Thank you for going over the fence with me.

SWARTZ: Yes, agree!

QUEST: I am grateful. Thank you.

It is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

When we return in just a moment, we will be joined by the chief executive of DHL joining me live. There he is, Leipzig Airport, one of the shipping

companies, European hubs which has become a target of course. We will discuss that and much more.

QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:16:13]

QUEST: DHL's main European hub has become the latest flashpoint between Russia and the West.

Germany is accusing Russia of being involved in an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig/Halle Airport, an explosive's laden drone was

discovered near the airports runway, where cargo flights operate.

Police say a DHL cargo plane hit an unidentified object that same day near the airport, and was forced to reroute. Germany has denied any involvement.

Tobias Meyer is the chief executive of DHL. He joins me from Bonn in Germany.

Before we get into the way the company is doing in the cargo business, let's just talk about the Leipzig incident, not only the report that one of

your planes hit an unidentified object, but also this idea of an explosives drone, which bearing in mind your operations at that airport must be very,

very concerning to you.

TOBIAS MEYER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DHL: Well, Richard, first of all, thanks for having me.

We operate in a complicated world. We have been doing this as DHL for many decades. We have a global presence. And, you know, the world has been

troubled, not so much in Europe. So in Europe, it is a new experience.

But we had been a presence in Africa, obviously across Asia, in the Americas. So it is not entirely new to us that we deal with specific

security situations, be that in the countries we operate on the ground, but also aviation related security issues are not new to us.

QUEST: Right. But as we look in Europe, which of course is the backbone, in a sense, with the Ukraine war and the worsening relations with Russia, if

they could get much worse, how are you having to adapt your route network where you're doing business, how you're actually flying routes? I guess,

obviously you've got it under review on a daily basis, but what sort of changes are you having to make?

MEYER: So the main changes we had to make recently are around the Middle East. Our regional hub is in Bahrain there, and as you know, that has been

a rather troubled location for several weeks this year. So that was the biggest impact we had due to security related issues.

In Leipzig, this was a rather short term thing. It impacted one night.

QUEST: Right. Let's talk about the business. Tariffs, the removal of de minimis, trade relations and trade links, breaking down. At the same time,

as a lot of trade is growing on a non-U.S. basis and that's really the hallmark here, isn't it. Countries doing more trade that's avoiding the

U.S.

MEYER: Yes, absolutely, Richard! Good summary. Indeed, we have seen last year particularly quite some shrinkage on what was the world's biggest

trade line, China-U.S., so that has been heavily impacted. But for this year, I would say tech beats travers.

We have seen quite some good demand for our business, but also across the industry, especially for the air freight and express segment driven by

tech, by data centers especially. But we also had negative tariff impact, continued negative tariff impact as it relates to the United States.

And as you mentioned, a change in Europe as of 1st of July, we don't have the same de minimis. It is different than the us. We have to take note of

that, because Europe always had an import VAT. The U.S. didn't have that. So economically its different, but it is a different hurdle, an additional

hurdle to trade that the European Union has put up in this case.

[16:20:07]

QUEST: Where do you want to grow the business? What for you is the most exciting bit?

MEYER: Look, there is quite a lot of excitement around our company in two ways. We have geographies that still have a lot of growth opportunity. If

you think about Latin America, if you think about the Southeast Asian economies. So there are places in the world where things are happening, and

we also believe that the Middle East will come back.

And then there are sectors we talk -- I mentioned data centers already. It is really booming. Its fascinating to see the amount of spend and how cargo

is moving. We continue to benefit from e-commerce. The shift from people going to the store to buying online. That's a big driver in our business.

But we also have areas like life science and healthcare. If you think about biopharma, it is going to be different types of supply chains where you

have less storage location. You need to ship those goods more direct to consumers, to clinics directly and that's a big opportunity in our

business.

QUEST: Final question, you don't have to answer this. You can plead the Fifth Amendment, as they say here because we are going to be talking about

gold. Do you move much gold? Does DHL actually move big you know, large amounts of ingots of gold for people?

MEYER: I wish we would be moving to my house, but that's not the case, Richard. No, that's not something we generally do in large quantities, such

as specialized transports.

QUEST: Exactly!

MEYER: No. We move. We are, I would say, the backbone of the industrial base. You could say there is a little bit of yellow in everything in the

goods that you consume in the United States. The tech that goes into data centers, the supply chain in pharmaceuticals.

So these -- this is the home of DHL to participate in those supply chain through our global express network, but also locally through warehousing

activities, through specialized distribution networks in the United States, but also across the world.

QUEST: I am grateful, sir. Thank you. The reason, of course, I was asking about gold is that the Dutch have been moving their gold. Thank you, sir,

for joining us. Thank you.

Now, for decades, the U.S. has been considered one of the safest places to store gold.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOICE OVER: Fort Knox, 600 miles from the Atlantic Coast. Uncle Sam buried his store of gold, armed patrols and mechanized units escorted it to its

new home, which is big enough for all the gold in the world.

As a protection against civil war, foreign invasion and gangsters, the bullion is protected by electrified fences, gas filled steel barricades and

machine guns. Compare the Bank of England, the old lady of Threadneedle Street doesn't even carry an umbrella.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Fort Knox, where the U.S. keeps its own reserves of gold. The other countries, well, the gold tends to be kept at the Federal Reserve Bank in

New York. You can see the picture on the right. And of course, the other major place is the Bank of England, the vaults underneath the bank.

Now, in terms of storing gold, the main places where gold has always been stored and the traditional places is historic -- historical reasons why

gold is -- France, for example, let's use France. We will give France --

France used to store its gold into the United States. But last year, after an upgrading of various gold, it moved the gold back to France itself. In

terms of The Netherlands, which we are talking about at the moment now, The Netherlands had stored gold in Canada and in the United States.

But guess what? That's also been moved. But this time, it has been moved to the United Kingdom. In other words, the major venues for where gold has

been stored in the past, the U.S. and the U.K. Now more and more countries are deciding it is time to take the gold home.

Jack Garrett-Jones was the head of Notes and Gold at the Bank of England. He is now a board member at Gold Network. He is with me.

Jack, so the reason that the Dutch have said is because they say they want the -- it is for crisis management. Okay? Crisis management and

preparedness. But why? Is this because they don't want Donald Trump preventing them getting their gold back?

JACK GARRETT-JONES, FORMER HEAD OF NOTES AND GOLD AT THE BANK OF ENGLAND, BOARD MEMBER AT GOLD NETWORK: So what I always advise my clients is when

they're thinking about their gold reserves, because gold is the ultimate asset, it is probably the last thing you look to use in a real crisis.

When you're a Central Banker thinking about what those absolute last ditch, very unlikely, very high probability theory, very low probability, very

high impact crisis would look like, you need to think about where you want your gold, what you need out of your gold.

What the Dutch have done is that they've moved about a quarter of their gold to the Bank of England.

[16:25:10]

They've upgraded it so that they're able to get liquidity on that, they are able to sell it or lend it out incredibly fast in order to get cash.

QUEST: Okay. So if we come back to our -- to the chart that I was looking at, at the moment, are we basically saying that the U.S., for all its

sophisticatedness, is not as sophisticated, for example, as the Bank of England in terms of being able to move gold, that the U.K. -- or the bank

with all those vaults, they can actually shift between each other rather than the U.S. or Canada.

GARRETT-JONES: Yes, so I think this is a bit of a quirk of history. The physical gold market is in London. there are hundreds of billions of

dollars' worth of gold in vaults belonging to the bank of England and to the commercial banks in London.

What that means is that if you want to sell a large amount of gold quickly, then the best place to have that is the Bank of England.

The Bank of England enables what we call or what they call, I should say, book entry transfers. So a customer which in the case of the Bank of

England, the customer is only a bank or a country, a central bank, a country, they can send a SWIFT message, a digital secure message to the

Bank of England saying transfer this gold from my account to someone else's. That can happen incredibly quickly. That counterparty receives the

gold and then can pay money to the seller very, very rapidly.

The Bank of England built a very sophisticated, very rigorous and secure system to enable that for its customers, for the other central banks and

the Fed didn't have the market there to make it worth their while.

QUEST: Is gold still worth it? And, you know, and I ask that question because I've always believed gold is one of the most stupid investments

ever. Because at the end of the day, I understand the significance of it. I understand, you know, yes, you can't eat it and its gone, but you can

always trade blah, blah, blah.

But I've never been a gold bug. Ive never been one of those people, that's sort of -- but you're now going to tell me I am completely wrong, and

that's why I am poor.

GARRETT-JONES: So I wish that I had perfect foresight on gold. For a long time, I, very much agreed with you. I think that in the 90s, in the early

2000, gold was -- gold had lost a huge amount of value. What has happened since then is that the amount of uncertainty in the world has increased.

Government debt has increased. there have been a number of other complicating factors, particularly in the last five years, pandemics,

geopolitical issues -- all of those have meant that when both individuals, because individuals own the majority of the gold in the world and also

governments who own maybe 15 to 20 percent of the gold in the world think about what do they want from their assets? Like what are they needing from

them?

The idea of this very, very stable, very secure backup last ditch has become really popular. And that's why the price of gold has gone up a lot.

QUEST: You know, I have asked that Bank of England a million times to film those gold vaults, and they always say, no, it is amazing, isn't it? Never,

never let you anywhere near.

I am grateful to you, Jack, for joining us tonight. Thank you very much indeed.

GARRETT-JONES: It is very difficult to get into the gold vaults. Thank you.

QUEST: And to get out again. Thank you, sir. Good!

Nepal's Finance Minister after the break. He is going to tell me his country is getting help from a variety of sources and that includes a large

gift from the NVIDIA chief executive, Jensen Huang. You'll see Nepal will need lots of help in the rebuilding and the Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle,

is after the break.

QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:31:54]

QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. A lot more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in a moment. We'll be telling you what Nvidia is spending nearly $13 billion to

buy an A.I. startup called Hugging Face. And we'll explain the Dutch government's decision to move billions of dollars of gold out of the U.S..

The chain of integrity.

It's all on CNN, and only after the news, because on this network, the news always comes first.

Excuse me. Vice President J.D. Vance says he wouldn't call the war with Iran a war. The vice president told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that it would be

irresponsible to lay out a timeline for when the conflict might end. The vice president says negotiations with Tehran won't resume unless the

Iranians stop shooting at commercial shipping along the Strait of Hormuz.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Edouard are drenching eastern Texas. The region has been hit with more than 20 inches of rain, around 50 centimeters

as more rain expected throughout Thursday, but forecasters say it appears the worst of the storm has passed.

It's the sixth day of deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, and that could end in a mistrial. According to a court official, the jury sent

a note to the court. The judge then read out loud the definition of reasonable doubt. Jurors had already told the judge they could not reach a

unanimous verdict on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Nepal's finance minister has told me his country will overcome last week's devastating floods and emerge from the crisis stronger than before. Swarnim

Wagle told me that this is a disaster like no other, and the numbers indicate as much. Officials say the Denver people died has reached more

than 1,200 and almost 5,000 people are still missing.

The minister also said governments, organizations and individuals are stepping up to help and that the minister had just received a generous gift

from Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SWARNIM WAGLE, NEPALI FINANCE MINISTER: Just 10 minutes before speaking to you, we received a generous assistance of U.S. $10 million from Jensen

Huang, the founder, CEO and president of the American A.I. company. So that level of generosity, the outpouring, the immense outpouring of goodwill and

support for Nepal has also bolstered our confidence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Now in our forward discussion now, the human cost of the flooding is, of course, the most devastating part. But let's not forget that longer

term for Nepal, the economic damage, well, Nepal's government will need to figure out how to raise the billions needed to rebuild and get people back

to living their lives because otherwise, frankly, whatever the awfulness of the situation now, unless the economy is maintained, it becomes a great

deal worse.

[16:35:03]

Nepal estimates the damage alone, raw damage, $5 billion. Around 10 percent of the country's annual GDP. A steep, steep price. And the finance minister

said the flood will take a real toll because Nepal is ready to take on the challenges that lay ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAGLE: This is a colossal human tragedy, something unprecedented in the recent history of the Himalayas. As I'm speaking to you now, more than 1250

lives have been lost, more than 5,000 people have been reported to be missing. The intense rescue and relief phase of the response on the part of

the government is ongoing. Today we're entering the eighth day. There's still hope that, you know, dozens, if not hundreds of people, who might be

trapped in the tunnels, associated with more than a dozen hydropower plants in this river basin.

QUEST: Right.

WAGLE: Might still be rescued. That effort is ongoing, and so it's a very somber occasion for us.

QUEST: You have the task, of course, of ensuring that the economy continues to grow and to move forward. And we talk about that because if the economy

doesn't in a bad situation becomes a great deal worse. So there is a serious imperative for you to get things moving, restore power in a sense.

You've -- you know, so much of Nepal went to hydropower, which has now been very badly damaged. What can you tell me?

WAGLE: You know, our installed capacity in the country is roughly 4200 megawatts, but now just in this single river basin, you know, close to 350

megawatts of installed capacity has been badly damaged. And another 400 megawatts of installed capacity was being built. Right? So this is almost

more than 15 percent of our cumulative capacity that has been badly hit.

This will take a toll on the economy. And this will contribute to the supply the lessening and the reliability of the supply of electricity. So

that's one major channel. Agriculture, tourism, trade disruptions, and of course, the hit to the banking and insurance industries is also another

major factor.

QUEST: Who are you going to turn to, to fund and finance the recovery? Even -- obviously, there's the IMF, there's the World Bank, there's China.

There's a whole load of opportunities and possibilities. So where are you going to look first, do you think, for some form of multilateral lending?

WAGLE: Absolutely. It's a combination of everything. It's a combination of all the sources that you've alluded to. You know, we have the last major

disaster, the 2015 earthquake that also claimed 9,000 lives and affected one-third of the country's territory to go by. And, you know, in responding

to that disaster, we were able to marshal resources from close to 70 sources and top, you know, donors in that list were obviously the two

multilateral development banks that have a large concessional lending window, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

And then you have our two big immediate neighbors, India and China, who we have also traditionally been very forthcoming with generous aid. Part of it

is grant, part of it is concessional lending. And then the Europeans, the Americans and all the other bilateral donors have also come forth.

QUEST: Have you --

WAGLE: So in the last major disaster, we're able to put together $4 billion of assistance. And that's -- a modified version of that is the approach

that we'll pursue.

QUEST: Have you received any indication so far that either, A, yes, all these participants will contribute and will be there for you, or B, that

they won't, that they're not able to? Which is it now, do you think?

WAGLE: Well, you know, we're looking at this crisis in sort of phases, right? So we're dealing with the rescue and relief phase. And in the relief

phase, which is of immediate humanitarian, assistance, you know, countries have stepped up. So we've received generous assistance from all the sources

that I've alluded to earlier. India, China, the United States, European Union, Great Britain, World Bank, ADB, the international -- the Federation

of the Red Cross, and all the usual.

[16:40:07]

But this time around, it's smaller amounts, but grant based assistance for immediate relief. As we move to the early recovery and then the longer term

reconstruction phase, we might have to convene a big international conference to rebuild Nepal. And it is at that time, based on our credible

estimates of damages and losses and what our realistic need is for rebuilding, we would be able to convene and solicit a collective pledge at

that point, which could be a few weeks away.

QUEST: How do you prevent losing those that the economy at the moment? That's really the difficulty now.

WAGLE: As colossal as the scale of this tragedy is, it has been rather concentrated in one particular river basin. It has directly affected three

or four of the 77 districts of the country. So the depth and the intensity is very worrisome, but we hope that we would be able to overcome this

disaster because a large component of the physical damage is related to hydropower. Much of that has been insured.

The roads and the bridges can be built back up with concessional assistance. The educational facilities, the health facilities, we are

confident we'll be able to revive. And we will be very wary going forward on encouraging or at least dissuading settlements right on the river banks.

And that applies to the, you know, the pattern across the entire country, et cetera. So at this point, we're grieving the loss of this immense human

toll. You know, more than 1250, as I mentioned to you.

But more than 5,000 missing, the number could go higher as, you know, these -- as the rescue effort expands, but economically we're hoping that these

four or five channels can be handled. So the tourism, the trade, the agriculture, the hydropower, and the banking and insurance. So these are

the five key channels which will affect the economy. We hope with the generous assistance, some temporary reprieves, something we've announced

today, I think we will be able to manage this over the over the medium term. Three to five years, we will be able to overcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: Nepal's finance minister talking to me earlier today. We'll follow up, of course, with him in a few weeks' time.

Still to come, it's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS on this evening. Using technology for good. How a company in the Netherlands is using 3D printers to help

restore the ocean.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:45:27]

QUEST: Every day CNN's "Call to Earth Day" brings the world together for a global day of action dedicated to protecting the planet. This year, on

October 8th, we're asking you to think blue as we shine a light on the continuous body of salt water connecting us all. Of course, the ocean. And

today, let's go to the Netherlands, where one company is using 3D printers to restore some of the worlds most threatened marine habitats.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Stretching 32 kilometers across the coast, Europe's largest dike has kept the Netherlands from

flooding for almost a century.

NADIA FANI, CEO, COASTRUCTION: We are standing on one of the masterpieces of engineering of the Netherlands, but it's also a biodiversity disaster.

STEWART (voice-over): Completed in 1932, the dike sealed off an estuary that acted as a vital fish nursery and rich fishing ground. Now, a concrete

wall crosses through it, a poor habitat for marine life.

Nadia, a tech entrepreneur turned conservationist, wants to change that by 3D printing a new reef piece by piece.

FANI: We are working on to make it the biggest artificial reef for restoration of underwater life in the world.

STEWART (voice-over): In 2021, Nadia co-founded Coastruction to support the world's damaged reefs. At the company's workshop in Rotterdam, a team of

five carefully designs and prints artificial reefs to order.

FANI: This is exactly what is going to be installed, and the platform underneath is going to be casted in concrete. If we don't start changing

things as they are right now, we may lose more than 90 percent of all coral reef by 2050, which is very sad because with them, we lose protection of

our coastlines.

STEWART (voice-over): Artificial reefs aren't new. Governments have sunk concrete blocks and old ships to create them since the 1950s. Back then,

anything solid could make a reef, but now they're being designed with wildlife in mind.

FANI: Seeing the limited shape that they were using, and of course, you've never seen underwater cubes and pyramids. In nature they need natural

shape. We design each of our reef, always with a purpose. We analyze the condition of the ecosystem and we create all the shapes needed for each

environment.

What you see here are our target species for our next artificial reef. This is our largescale printer, and right now is busy printing our reefs.

STEWART (voice-over): Each new reef that will line the dike is made layer by layer with locally sourced sand, cement and water. After testing in

their different tanks, Coastruction deploys smaller replicas in a brackish lake near the office to make sure they'll be effective in open waters.

Outside European waters, Coastruction has already printed reefs for the Maldives, the Red Sea and the Caribbean Island of Saba.

FANI: The vision is to allow other people to use our technology. We believe the local community always knows best what is needed in each ecosystem.

STEWART (voice-over): Their most ambitious job is closer to home, as the first piece of the new reef reaches its final destination.

FANI: These will be for at least one kilometer. And who knows, maybe more because the dike is more than 30 kilometers long. Today, my children are

with me because I wanted to teach them and to show them what does it mean to make a difference.

STEWART (voice-over): As the reef expands and life returns, it will be in the hands of future generations to protect it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: Making a difference. Join us on October 8th for "Call to Earth Day." Think blue. No matter where you are, no matter how we live, the oceans, the

life of the oceans impact us all.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:52:13]

QUEST: And some news to bring to your attention this evening. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to give the U.S. Postal Service

power to withhold the delivery of mail ballots. This latest requests two months before the midterms in November, it's an emergency appeal, follows a

month's long fight over an executive order the president signed in March. It gives federal agencies an unprecedented, excuse me, role in elections.

Finally, tonight, Nvidia has become a champion in Silicon Valley of open source A.I. models. Now it's backing up its words with cash. The chip maker

says it will buy Hugging Face for $13 billion nearly. The startup has built an open source A.I. platform used by millions of developers and

researchers. The latest investment by Nvidia in A.I., the company's shares closed near 2 percent higher, outperforming the Nasdaq over the course of

the day.

Claire is with me. Clare Duffy.

Why have they bought Hugging Face?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: Well, Richard, this really is, as you said, just the latest move in its effort to grow this A.I. ecosystem, of

which Nvidia's technology is the backbone. Hugging Face is a platform that has more than three million A.I. models, open source A.I. models. Eighteen

million developers and researchers are using it.

And so for Nvidia, the math here is if we can expand that reach even further, get more people, more developers, more researchers using open

source ai technology, that is more money in our pockets at the end of the day, more reliance on our chips, and also the software that Nvidia itself

builds.

QUEST: Right.

DUFFY: There are 500 of Nvidia's own models on this Hugging Face platform.

QUEST: But if we look at the totality of Nvidia's spending, whether it's lending money for data centers, lending money to some companies so they can

buy chips, buying this particular company, that particular company, the goal, I mean, they, you know, that old thing of who is the market know they

are the market.

DUFFY: That's right. I mean, this is the same logic as you say behind investing in OpenAI and Anthropic so that they can buy up more of Nvidia's

chips, creating a fund with Wall Street so that it can lend money to its customers for their A.I. infrastructure. And what I think is particularly

interesting about this Hugging Face deal is it is a big bet on open source A.I. in the midst of this debate in Washington and Silicon Valley over

closed and open source A.I..

Nvidia already has a number of its biggest customers are these closed source companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. So this is sort of Nvidia

hedging its bets and saying we don't yet know who's going to win this open or closed debate. So we're going to make sure we've got some open source

models, some open source customers as well here, so that regardless of who wins here, Nvidia remains at the center of this A.I. ecosystem.

QUEST: Who is Nvidia's biggest single challenger?

[16:55:00]

DUFFY: I think Nvidia, you know, is increasingly experiencing competition from across the industry. But largely we are seeing these hyperscalers,

these big data center builders like OpenAI and Google and Amazon starting to create their own custom chips, in part because they want to decrease

their reliance on this one major company, Nvidia, and also because if they create custom chips, they can tailor that to their specific needs.

And so I think that is really the concern for Nvidia is that it has relied so heavily on those hyperscaler customers. And investors are starting to

say, well, what if those customers start pulling away and making their own technology? And that is why you see Nvidia investing in this open source

company, so that it's got some other types of customers to rely on its technology.

QUEST: I'm grateful. Thank you very much, Clare Duffy.

I want to show you where Wall Street ended. Sharply higher for the second straight session. All three indices rose more than 1 percent, with the

Nasdaq nearly at 1.5 percent to the 30. Goldman Sachs is up more than 3 percent. Salesforce and Microsoft not far behind. It's all part of the

software rally. At the bottom, you've got Disney and Cisco, and losses muted compared to the gains at the upper end.

And Volkswagen is cutting ready for this 50,000 jobs. The Volkswagen board has approved the cuts as part of a transformation plan designed to help the

German automaker adapt to changing demand, rising costs and growing demand from China.

"Profitable Moment" after the break. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment."

We take a lot of things for granted, and it's only when things sort of change a bit that you look. For example, the Netherlands' decision to move

a quarter of its gold from the Federal Reserve in the U.S. to the Bank of England, claiming that it's wanted to be better prepared and that keeping

the gold in London makes that the case.

At face value the strong reasons for it, because, as you heard on this program tonight, you can trade your gold easier in London because of the

Bank of England's digital methods of trading than the U.S. But also I think that there's an element of people looking at the United States and

thinking, is this the place we want to keep some of our most precious assets, that in the event we needed them urgently, we could get our hands

on them?

Whatever we dress up, what people think and how people have behaved and banks and institutions in the past, it really is a case of everything

change and the gold is just one example. And no, I still have never believed in gold and I still don't know why everybody is so excited about

it, except if it's on a pair of earrings or a gold watch.

And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I am Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.

Please join me tomorrow in London.

END