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CNN International: Biden And Starmer To Discuss Ukraine At White House; Harris To Hold Campaign Rallies In Pennsylvania Today; CNN Meets Injured Ukrainian Soldiers On Hospital Win; Global AI Summit Offers Forecast Of The Future; Lego Found Stuck In Nose After Nearly 30 Years. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired September 13, 2024 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: I'm Eleni Giokos. It's 05:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi. This is "Connect the World". Your headlines this hour,
the Russian President warns of war if NATO allows Ukraine to fire deeper into Russia, more trouble at aerospace giant Boeing as 33,000 union workers
are on strike. And a shakeup within Israel's defense forces as a top official resigns.
Welcome to the show and the stock market is about to open in New York around 30 minutes from now, after four straight days of gains driven by
rising tech stocks. Let's check in to see how the futures are doing. As you can see, the DOW and S&P to the positive, NASDAQ slightly lower at this
point. But of course, we'll check in on those numbers in around 30 minutes.
All right, we start with a blunt and ominous warning from Russia's President to NATO about the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin says NATO would
be at war with Russia if the alliance allows Ukraine to fire long range missiles into his country. That possibility is under discussion in a number
of NATO member nations.
And it's sure to be a topic of conversation later today, when U.S. President Joe Biden hosts British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White
House. I want to bring in Senior White House Reporter now Kevin Liptak, who's been covering the story for us. Good to see you, Kevin. How is
Secretary Blinken? How is the United States going to weigh up the risk of escalation after Putin's warning with Ukraine's needs to win this war?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and I think it's a balance that the U.S. is trying to strike here, and just the fact that this
conversation is happening at all, I think tells you the enormous amount of pressure that President Biden is under to ease some of these restrictions
on the American and Western long-range missiles and allow Ukraine to fire them deep into Russia.
This is something that President Biden has all but ruled out previously, but the battlefield dynamic on the ground in Ukraine has certainly changed
that so has the revelation this week that Iran is providing Russia with its own ballistic missiles. That has changed the calculus in some ways,
according to Western officials.
And so, you do have this new found conversation underway between the U.S. and its Western allies. And here in Washington, there has been something of
a divide within the government about the wisdom of making this change. On the one side, you have officials who continue to be worried about the
potential for escalation, and of course, President Biden has been worried about that every time a new capability comes on the table when it comes to
Ukraine.
You also hear top officials question the effectiveness of this strategy at all. And you heard the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin give voice to that
last week when he said that Russia has already moved a number of its key assets outside of the range of these long-range missiles. And he also
raised the fact that this supply of these weapons is not limitless.
On the other hand, you have senior members of Congress, including senior Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, who say that the risk of
escalation is overblown. They point out that President Biden's moves over the last two years have not necessarily caused an escalation with Vladimir
Putin, and they say that this kind of capability is necessary for Ukraine to win this war.
And so, this will be a topic of discussion when Keir Starmer arrives to the White House later this afternoon. Both of these men recently dispatched
their top diplomats to Ukraine to hear from President Zelenskyy directly about why this capability might be necessary. And we did hear from the
American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, afterwards, describing some of this. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Look, a hallmark of what we've done from day one. In fact, even before day one of the Russian aggression
against Ukraine in 2022 was to try to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs -- when it needs it, to deal with that aggression. And as what Russia
is doing has changed, as the battlefield has changed, we've adapted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPTAK: Now what American officials say is that they don't expect any announcement or decision to come out of the meeting today. And they have
tamped down on the expectation that President Biden would allow the American attack of missiles to be fired deep into Russia.
However, they have not ruled out the possibility that President Biden would grant permission for the UK to fire its own Storm Shadow long-range
missiles into Russia. That's something that would require American Sign off, and certainly that is a main topic of conversation when these leaders
sit down later today.
GIOKOS: All right, certainly is. Kevin Liptak, thank you so much for that update.
[09:05:00]
Well, ahead of the UK Prime Minister's visit to the White House, Russia says it is expelling six British diplomats. Moscow accuses them of spying
without providing evidence. The UK and Russia have traded diplomatic curbs and sanctions since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
And you can follow the latest news on the Russia Ukraine war on our website, there's a story up on Ukraine's offensive into Russia's Kursk
Region, seen as a major achievement and morale boost for Ukraine's military, but also coming at a huge cost. And you can find the story online
on your home computer or through the CNN App on your smartphone.
And later this hour, on "Connect the World" CNN's Christiane Amanpour gets exclusive access to Ukrainian hospital train used to evacuate wounded
soldiers from the front lines. What she's learned about this never-before- seen operation that's coming up ahead.
U.S. aerospace giant Boeing is being hit with its first strike in 16 years. Some 33,000 union members are walking off the job, some of them immediately
hit the picket lines, and it comes after more than 94 percent of the workers rejected the proposed four-year contract, which included a pay
rise, but not as much as they wanted.
CNN Business and Politics Correspondent Vanessa Yurkevich joins us now. Vanessa, good to see you. It goes honestly from bad to even worse for
Boeing, this strike is happening after a string of those setbacks for the company, including layoffs for quality and safety concerns. What is going
on right now?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boeing has had a rough couple of years, and Boeing says that this contract was a
historic offer. The union leadership recommended this offer to their members to vote on. But as you said, 95 percent of the union members said
it's not good enough, and 96 percent voted to go on strike, and that is exactly what we are seeing this morning.
Thousands of Boeing union members on the picket lines. And just to remind folks of what was in the deal. There was a 25 percent wage increase offer
the union, we know wanted closer to 40 percent. The union also wanted to return to traditional pensions. But they got, instead increases to their
401Ks.
They also wanted job security. And one of the things that was contingent on this deal passing last night was that Boeing said that we would put in
production the next airplane in Washington. Job security for thousands of workers. That part of the deal now remains up in the air because we have
thousands of workers on the picket lines and not producing planes.
And Boeing is one of America's largest manufacturers, largest exporters, and right now they are without a production line, as those thousands of
workers Eleni are out on the picket lines instead.
GIOKOS: Yeah. I mean, it's such an important point, because Boeing does estimate that its contribution to the U.S. economy is around $79 billion
that's on an annual front. Look, it's hugely important to aviation globally. We've got many orders that have come in from various airlines
around the world. So, what kind of impact are we talking about here?
YURKEVICH: The longer this strike drags on, the bigger of an economic impact we will see. As you mentioned, that Boeing essentially stimulates
the U.S. economy every year by $79 billion. They also through the people that they employ, then create an offshoot of 1.6 million jobs.
If this strike drags on, we're going to see impacts to the 10,000 suppliers that Boeing works with. We're going to see an impact on jobs perhaps. We're
going to see delays and deliveries of airplanes to U.S. airlines and foreign airlines who have made those purchases, and of course, the union
members themselves are going to be off the job.
They're going to be getting strike pay, but they're not going to be getting their pay. Boeing, for their part, says in a statement that they really
want to get back to the table. They say we're remain committed to reaching and resettling our relationship with our employers in the union and are
ready to get back to the table to reach a new agreement.
So, they're eager to get back to the table. It's day one of the strikes. So much can happen in just 24 hours. We could see a deal. This could drag on
for weeks and weeks and weeks, but we are hearing from union members that simply, what was put on the table was not good enough.
GIOKOS: All right, Vanessa, good to see you. Thank you so much. Well, Donald Trump says he will not participate in another U.S. presidential
debate against Kamala Harris ahead of November's election. He claims he doesn't need a rematch because he won Tuesday's debate.
[09:10:00]
All right, and while Trump claims victory, several major polls show that Harris won Tuesday's matchup. Harris, meantime, is calling for a second
debate, and her campaign predicts there will be another one. All right, CNN's Kristen Holmes is following the Trump campaign in California for us.
And we've got Isaac Dovere covering VP Harris. Good to see you both. Isaac, I want to start with you. How has Kamala Harris responded to Donald Trump's
comments on not wanting to debate again?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Harris and her advisors want another debate. They want to make it happen. And, if nothing else,
they want to try to embarrass Donald Trump for not doing it. But the course of the last few days is what we're going to see over the week ahead, as
they try to goad Trump over and over, saying, why don't you debate?
Why are you too scared to debate? You lost the debate. She's been making fun of his debate performance on the trail, all of that, hoping that Trump
himself gets riled up by it and gets triggered in the way that they feel, like she did effectively throughout the debate itself, and overrules his
own statement so far and overrules what seems to be the feeling of his campaign -- his own campaign advisers. So, we'll see if it works. But that
is definitely their strategy here.
GIOKOS: All right. Kristen, I want you to jump in here. Post debate what is the Donald Trump team thinking behind declaring no more debates? I mean,
what Kamala Harris was saying is that this could change. What is the sense right now?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right now, the answer is, Donald Trump has said there are no more debates. So, they are all saying
there are going to be no more debates. Now, I do agree with the Harris advisor, who spoke to CNN on background, who said that Donald Trump often
changes his mind.
So obviously anything could happen. But after what we saw just a few nights ago with Donald Trump up on that debate stage, it certainly seems unlikely,
a reminder that while Donald Trump continues to say that he won the debate, that because when you're in prize fighting the person who loses the one who
immediately asked for a rematch, that's why Harris asked for a rematch. That's not what any of the polls indicate.
In addition to the polls not indicating that we have heard from Republican allies and advisers, both on the record and on background who say that they
were disappointed by his performance on Tuesday, that they didn't like the fact that he let Kamala Harris goad him, that he took the bait, that
essentially he strayed from the issues, which was something that ally after ally, advisor after advisor had told him repeatedly to do, to stick to
those issues, particularly when it comes to immigration and crime and the economy.
But obviously, as we saw on Tuesday, he lost his cool. He was yelling. He went into various conspiracy theories at different times, and he went into
some of the same rhetoric that we've heard in the past, not sticking to those three core issues that they believe would actually help him win the
White House in November. So why he's not doing the debate?
I think it remains clear, but I will tell you I did speak to one senior adviser who said that there is a general thinking that Kamala Harris needs
this debate, a second debate, or third overall presidential debate, more than Donald Trump does, that she needs to be out there in front of millions
of people, more than Donald Trump does.
And I will remind you all of our reporting and all of the polls that we have seen nationwide, from every poll that we count as a credible poll
shows that this race is really in the margins, that there is no discernible winner at this time, and both camps see that.
Donald Trump's team believes they can eke out a win without doing another debate, and they think Harris is the one who actually needs a debate more
than them. Obviously, we won't know if they don't do another debate, but this is just the thinking inside the campaign.
GIOKOS: Yeah. Yeah, really fascinating. Isaac, if you give me a sense in terms of what the Harris campaign is thinking right now, it's going to be
focusing more on policy. They obviously want to build on the debate momentum.
DOVERE: That's right. Look as Kristen said, there is a definite feeling of this race being close, including in Harris campaign headquarters, some
aides that I talked to saying to me that they feel like the election were held tomorrow, that Donald Trump would win it, despite how good they're
feeling about what happened at the debate and the momentum that they think that they can continue to capitalize over the next seven weeks to get her
to win.
But where they're going to be is in these battleground states, and how they're going to be doing it is not only the rallies that she's been
drawing huge crowds to much bigger crowds should be said than Joe Biden ever could have dreamt of. But also looking at ways that they can tap into
cultural icons, as a Taylor Swift endorsement that Democrats are starting to advertise with today.
There's also a hope of getting Beyonce out on the trail. Both of them may be doing concerts. Barack Obama will be doing things. But all of it aimed
at trying to reach a whole group of voters who are still saying that they're undecided, that they feel certain about how they view Donald Trump.
[09:15:00]
GIOKOS: Yeah.
DOVERE: But undecided about how they are about Kamala Harris, and that they cannot usually be reached by -- or cannot be reached by the usual means of
political campaigns. So, it's about reaching out in all these different ways try to bring them in and overpower what they know will be a strong and
devoted turnout for Donald Trump.
GIOKOS: All right. Isaac Dovere, Kristen Holmes, great to see you both. Thank you so much.
DOVERE: Thank you.
GIOKOS: And still to come, a shakeup in Israel's military for failing to prevent the October 7th attack. Details in a report from Israel just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GIOKOS: A shakeup within Israel's defense forces as Intelligence Commander Brigadier General Yossi Sariel resigns after being accused of failing to
prevent the October 7th attack. Sariel's resignation comes on the hills of an IDF strike on a large shelter in central Gaza that killed at least 18
people, including six U.N. employees.
It is the highest death toll for U.N. workers since the start of the war. Now the IDF defends the strike, saying three of six UNRWA staff were
members of Hamas, but did not immediately provide any evidence. CNN's Nic Robertson joins us now from Tel Aviv with more.
Nic, always good to see you. I want to talk about General Yossi Sariel resigning. Give me a sense of how significant this resignation is, because
it relates to October 7th, and the failings of intelligence to intercept or at least predict that there would be an attack of that nature.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's not surprising. It may hold something significant. In his letter, he talks about some of the
things that need to be changed, adjustments that need to be made. Look, he accepts responsibility for his failing. He says that he let down the people
of the country, his subordinates, the people under his command, and he let down his commanders.
He says the failing was that they weren't able to predict the golden moment, or the golden information, if you will, of the precise time of
Hamas' planned October 7th attack. But I think the criticism has been far broader than that. The criticism and the reporting here in Israel have made
very clear that the intelligence unit that he ran, the 8200-intelligence unit that he ran.
The one that had the responsibility to overwatch and pick out intelligence and observations and make smart, accurate interpretations of what they were
seeing and what they were hearing in Gaza to avoid exactly on October 7th.
[09:20:00]
The reporting has indicated that there were massive flaws in the way that, that was happening. That junior intelligence officers were seeing Hamas
doing something different. Interpreted it as potentially training for a specific event, passed it up the information line to their commanders, but
it didn't seem to get acted upon.
And of course, that's where Brigadier General Sariel's responsibility would be to have the right command structure that would be able to hear
everything that's coming up from the lower ranks and correctly interpreted. So, when he talks about some of the corrections that need to be made that
include operational changes, organizational changes.
I think that gives the hint there of what could happen and the answer to your question, if those big changes happen, then it becomes significant.
GIOKOS: All right. Nic Robertson, in Tel Aviv for us, thank you. Well, you can stay up to date with the latest on the war in Gaza by checking out the
"Meanwhile in the Middle East" newsletter. It includes a wide selection of stories from the humanitarian situation to the latest on the hostage and
ceasefire negotiations.
Have the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox on the CNN app or online, or you can just scan the QR code on your screen right now. CNN got
an exclusive look inside one of Ukraine's hospital trains used to evacuate wounded soldiers from the front lines. It's equipped with ultrasound
scanners, ventilators and even life support machines.
CNN Chief International Anchor, Christiane Amanpour, spoke to some of the staff and soldiers on board. We're not identifying them by their full names
or revealing their train's route for security reasons. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR (voice-over): On a hot late summer morning departure time is fast approaching at this railway
station in Ukraine, but this is no ordinary train. It's a hospital on wheels evacuating dozens of wounded military personnel away from the
Eastern Front as Russia's brutal offensive grinds on.
Paramedics carefully loading patient after patient, many of them unconscious onto repurposed carriages. It's a highly organized special
operation, and it's never been seen before. CNN gained unprecedented and exclusive access to what so far has remained a closely guarded military
secret.
Before the train moves off, I meet 35-year-old Oleksandr, wounded by a drone strike, which has caused him to go deaf in one ear. His call sign is
positive, but he doesn't feel it.
OLEKSANDR, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: I'm very tired, but these are hard times. And we must keep fighting no matter how hard it is.
AMANPOUR: Do you feel that you have enough people, enough weapons to defend?
OLEKSANDR: No.
AMANPOUR: You don't have enough?
OLEKSANDR: Not enough. No. There aren't enough people, and there definitely aren't enough weapons.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): As the train rolls on, we make our way to the intensive care unit, where several soldiers are on life support. Bed after
bed of broken and battered bodies. Lives shattered in an instant. 90 percent of the wounds being treated here are from shrapnel. And yet many of
these patients know they'll be patched up just to be sent back to the front as soon as possible.
This train and its cargo sum up Ukraine's state of military affairs, mostly ordinary citizens who have answered the call, outmanned, outgunned by
Russia, and yet still putting up a hell of a fight. Nurse Yulia makes this journey twice a week.
AMANPOUR: How do you feel being in here with these very badly wounded soldiers? How does it make you feel?
AMANPOUR (voice-over): I'm an empathetic person, so it's difficult, she tells me. But you have to switch off your feelings at the moment of work
and later you can reflect. And the story of frontline morale is on display here too. If electrician Oleksandr was feeling down after 18 months
fighting this brutal war.
[09:25:00]
Stanislaw, who signed up in March is still full of patriotic fervor. He can still summon a smile, even though he has shrapnel in his body and damage to
his lungs.
STANISLAW, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Personally, I was ready for it. I was ready to trade the shower stall, the good sheets and the bed, the good conditions
that I had at home for a foxhole. I knew where I was going and what I was doing.
OLEKSANDR, UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES MEDIC: That's the most difficult part is evacuation from the front line. Combat medics who work on the front are
dying just like soldiers.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): As these carriages rumble on through fields of gold, think for a moment of history repeating itself in Europe, when thousands of
ambulance trains evacuated casualties from World War one's trenches, more than a million to the U.K. alone. Tonight, darkness descends as we arrive
at the destination, and suddenly there's activity everywhere again.
As ambulances line up, collecting and dispatching to hospitals across the country. On the platform, the railway chief describes his pride and his
sorrow.
OLEKSANDR PERTSOVSKYI, CEO OF PASSENGER OPERATIONS AT UKRAINIAN RAILWAYS: See the kids who are saying goodbye to their deaths, who are heading
towards front lines. So, seeing those same guys coming back effectively unconscious or with amputations. It feels like the price of the war is
incredible.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): Like a conveyor belt industrial scale conversion of healthy young men and women into this and yet, as one of them told us,
Ukraine is strong and motivated. While Russia has quantity, we have quality, and we will win. Christiane Amanpour, CNN, Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: And still to come, I'll take you to the global summit on artificial intelligence in Saudi Arabia. Have I just met my possible replacement? And
amid an outcry over sky high prices, die hard Oasis fans scramble for a last chance to see the legendary band at Wembley, I'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:00]
GIOKOS: All right. We're live on Wall Street. That is the sound of the start of trade in New York. Welcome back. I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi,
and you're watching "Connect the World" trading just getting started in the U.S. market. Let's check in to see how they're doing right now.
If we can get those numbers up, all right, they're not open yet. In fact, we're waiting for a few seconds. We should be in the green, according to
some of the figures we saw in the futures, pointing to a much positive start as well. There we go. We've got them up now. We've got the DOW up
slightly NASDAQ, or slightly to the positive S&P 500 as well.
You've got to remember, we've had four straight winning sessions, and it's all about the tech stocks that have been leading the way. Now artificial
intelligence takes another developmental step. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has unveiled a new model that it says can reason and solve harder
problems in science, math and coding than its predecessors.
Developers say they've successfully trained the new model to spend more time thinking through problems before responding. Quote, much like a person
would, this latest version will gradually become available to most ChatGPT users. Well, clearly the future of artificial intelligence is now, but is
it moving too quickly.
I guess that's the big concern for the latest in our "Market Watch" series. I attended the global AI summit in Riyadh, where I asked experts in the
field for answers. Now Saudi Arabia is spending big money on AI. The Middle East strategy and Markets Leader of PwC says the numbers speak for
themselves.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN ANDERSON, STRATEGY LEADER OF PWC MIDDLE EAST: In the UAE, where you have MBX, which is a combination of G 42 and the butler, so they've set
aside $100 billion for investment. That investment will go both overseas, looking for talent, but also in some of the domestic large language models
that are developing.
And the UAE, I think, has been ranked by the economist as third in the world in terms of developing those large language models. Here in Saudi,
there's also an investment pot. So, with PIF, they put aside, as a fund, around $40 billion.
GIOKOS: What kind of industries are they investing in? Is it across the board? What are you seeing?
ANDERSON: It's quite a large spectrum. I think here in the region, government's a big area, so I think one of the big drivers is that there's
a lot of acceptance from the populace in the use of AI. People have, let's say, a little bit less squeamish to a certain degree on AI. We've just done
another report called hopes and fears, and that talks about people's sort of response to AI.
And it was quite noticeable that here in the region, people were much more prepared to experiment, much more prepared to get involved with AI than
maybe some other parts of the world as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, historically this region has been reliant on fossil fuels as a main generator of revenue, but we're seeing major strides and efforts
into diversifying. We're seeing energy giant Saudi Aramco, make big steps into AI, not only for efficiency, but also for its sustainability.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAREQ AMIN, CEO OF ARAMCO DIGITAL: This journey of exploration of the benefit of the AI, we are in just the early stages of it. I would argue
that in terms of productivity, improvement and efficiency, you know, anywhere between 15 to 30 percent is easy to be had, but we are in the
early stages to discover the hype, the hype of what AI is to what are the real monetizable use cases that brings advantages to the enterprise?
Take data centers today. Data centers consume 7 percent of the global energy that's a lot, and there and by the way, this is unfortunately not
reducing. See employing AI into this core business to optimize how these chipsets and these models are done, could have a net reduction of about 3
to 4 percent translate that into savings that is enormous. The country as a whole, under vision 2030 has really pushed very hard to drive renewables in
everything you do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, AI, is game changing technology, but of course, it comes with a big dose of uncertainty and what it could mean for jobs. Well, I spoke to
someone who thinks he knows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: People are worried that, you know, our jobs will not be relevant in the future. I'm a journalist. I'm worried about my job security. So, what
are the risks?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand your concerns.
GIOKOS: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Especially as a journalist, in an era where AI is rapidly evolving. The risks associated with AI are multifaceted.
[09:35:00]
And job displacement is indeed a significant worry for many people.
GIOKOS: Are you going to replace me, because you seem like a really good correspondent, presenter?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, not at all as much as AI can assist in many areas. It's the human touch, creativity and empathy truly make interactions
special.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, I should take his word for it, shouldn't I. But it's all about efficiency, and as you can see, there's a lot of optimism about what
the world could look like as AI plays a bigger role in our daily lives. On to another important story, Oasis fans have one last chance to score
coveted tickets for the band's Wembley shows as a last invite to the ticket sale is sent out.
There's no doubt some fans will look back in anger at concert promotes a Ticketmaster after being stung by high, sky-high prices amid a
controversial scheme called dynamic pricing. CNN's Anna Stewart reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- like telepathic I mean.
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the reunion, fans had been calling for.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When both come together --
STEWART (voice-over): The Gallagher brothers are getting back together after 15 years. Fans were left looking back in anger over ticket shortages
and supersonic prices.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will never spend 350 -- quid for a standard ticket to go and see a band.
STEWART (voice-over): It's all down to the controversial use of dynamic pricing for concert tickets. And a U.K. watchdog is now investigating.
NICOLAS DE ROOS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL: If a seller is not sure how many people want to turn up, they might want to
adjust prices over time as they get more information.
STEWART (voice-over): In the case of Oasis tickets, fans waited hoping to buy a ticket for 135 pounds on Ticketmaster. But then some tickets went for
more than 350 pounds. There was definitely, maybe a feeling of injustice, but maybe the prime minister will be the one to save well, Oasis fans.
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: -- from what I've determined about half the country is probably queuing for tickets. I'm committed to putting
fans at the heart of music and extortionate price resales, and we're starting a consultation to work out how best we can do this.
STEWART: Oasis announced new tour dates days after tickets went on sale, music to the ears of those who didn't get any but is it fair for those who
had already splashed out?
ROOS: It's not illegal to have dynamic pricing. What is potentially illegal is the transparency element. So, if there's any deception, and if it can be
argued that consumers were deceived when they began their purchase.
STEWART (voice-over): A Ticketmaster spokesperson told CNN the company doesn't set ticket prices. That's decided by promoters and artists, and
they can be fixed or dynamic. It's not the first time Ticketmaster has been under scrutiny. Taylor Swift fans crashed the site trying to book tickets
to the eras tour, prompting the DOJ to file an anti-trust suit, which its owner Live Nation called faceless.
Ultimately, the stadiums were packed for Swift, and there are always fans willing to pay a high price to see a rock and roll start. Anna Stewart,
CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: All right, we're going to a very short break. We'll be right back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:40:00]
GIOKOS: Well, it's awfully hard to imagine finding a Lego that's been stuck in your nose for nearly three decades, but that's exactly what happened to
Andy Norton, who shoved a Lego piece in their nose as a child and didn't realize it was still there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDI NORTON, FOUND LEGO PIECE IN NOSE: I was a kid playing with my Legos as most children in the 90s did, and I had the greatest idea, to take one of
those little dot Legos, and I don't know, I just thought maybe I could just stick it in my nose. I was going to stick the Lego man up my nose and try
to connect the piece on the top of the head, like a little hat.
The Lego head popped off in my nose. At this point, I've panicked loudly, and my mom came in. So, she grabs a pair of tweezers, and she, you know,
tilts my head back. She fishes out this Lego head.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, 26 years later after dealing with breathing issues, a doctor told Norton to blow their nose in the shower, and that's when this Lego
piece came out. Norton says they don't know what to think, but hopefully they can breathe easier now. Well, "World Sport" is up next, and I'll be
back at the top of the hour with more "Connect the World".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
