Return to Transcripts main page

NEWS STREAM

Ukrainian Army Retakes Donetsk Airport; Windows Unveils Skype Translator; Heat Wave Smolders in East Asia; Is Hollywood Turning Against Barack Obama?; Barack Obama To Reset U.S. Foreign Policy During Speech Today; Google Unveils New Driverless Car

Aired May 28, 2014 - 8:00   ET

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


KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.

Now the U.S. president is set to make a major address to reset the United States foreign policy.

The battle for control of eastern Ukraine rages on.

And Google unveils its latest self-driving car, this one does not have a steering wheel.

In just a couple of hours, President Obama is set to make major address on America's role in the world and his foreign policy vision for the rest of the his term. He will speak at West Point Military Academy's commencement.

Now Mr. Obama is trying to counter critics who say his administration has been too passive, particularly in response to Syria's civil war and the crisis in Ukraine.

Now Mr. Obama says he's about to begin a new chapter in American leadership around the world. Global challenges that likely will dominate the remainder of his term include Russia. The crisis in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea have renewed tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Now another global challenge, Syria, which has been engulfed by civil war for three years now.

There's also Iran. Now world powers are just two months from the deadline for a final deal with Tehran on its nuclear program.

Now terror threats and the growing influence of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are also a foreign policy priority.

And growing tensions in Asia between China and Japan, China and Vietnam and Japan and South Korea also top concerns.

Now we will have much more on the president's speech in the hours ahead right here on CNN. In fact, the U.S. secretary of State John Kerry will be speaking live to our partner network CNN USA. Let's go to that interview right now.

(SIMULCAST WITH CNN USA)

LU STOUT: And that was U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talking to our partner network CNN USA. Kerry was vigorously defending the U.S. president's foreign policy, especially in regards to Syria and Ukraine.

Now those comments from Secretary Kerry, they all come ahead of that major address that President Barack Obama is set to make on America's role in the world and his foreign policy vision for the rest of his term.

Now let's get more now on President Obama's foreign policy speech. CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski joins me now live from Washington.

And Michelle, Secretary John Kerry, you heard it just then, just spoke to CNN Chris Cuomo. What did you take away from that interview?

KOSINSKI: Yeah, that was interesting. I mean, really robustly defending those criticisms of U.S. foreign policy that have been out there for some time. So it's not like he didn't see them coming. But he wasn't really mincing words and saying that those criticisms are flat wrong in some respects, especially on Syria. I think that's where President Obama has taken the most flak when he drew that red line against the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons. And of course the regime did use chemical weapons.

Well, Kerry specified that you know what the only chemical that we know that the regime has used thus far to the extent of our knowledge is chlorine, and that doesn't automatically fall under the list of banned chemical weapons. He said that the president could have struck militarily at that time, could have been a day or two long strike. Kerry said it would have done some damage. But instead of a partial solution, they chose what they characterize as a full solution, getting rid of the chemical weapons.

And he characterized that situation as being almost 100 percent removed, or in control in that country.

You know, and I think that's where the news is going to come from, from this speech today. We know that this is going to be a sort of shift in foreign policy, a kind of rebalancing things since American resources have been moving out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan almost completely now. And what analysts as well as people within the administration are saying is that this needs to be a balance struck between America taking the lead in world events as it has been trying to do with these really troublesome ones that have come up lately, including the Russia and Ukraine situation, but also not over extending itself.

And it looks like the U.S. today, through President Obama's speech, will announce a kind of anti-terror partnership with other countries, training them against radical extremism, as well as additional support for the Syrian opposition. Now that's interesting, because it's been talked about as being possibly a training of that opposition.

But Kerry did specify in the multiple interviews that he did today that it would mean still no American boots on the ground, Kristie.

LU STOUT: All right, Michelle Kosinski there with a preview of what to expect when President Obama gives his foreign policy reset address later today. Michelle, thank you.

You are watching News Stream. Still ahead on the program, eastern Ukraine sees some of the worst clashes since the unrest began as Russia's president prepares for new talks in the crisis. We'll bring you the latest.

And the underwater search for Flight 370 is put on hold. We'll tell you why and what comes next in the hunt for the missing plane.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back.

Now there is more tension at sea a day after the crew of a Vietnamese fishing boat say a Chinese ship rammed their boat and sank it.

In this CNN video, you can see Chinese coast guard vessels using water cannons on Vietnamese boats.

Now this all happened in a part of the South China Sea that is disputed by China and Vietnam. Now things took a turn for the worst after a Chinese state oil company launched an oil rig in the area.

Now the search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370 is being put on hold for at least two months. Australian officials say that they're working to negotiate a new contract for more high tech search equipment. And when the hunt restarts, it will likely cost about $60 million U.S. dollars. Saima Mohsin has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wednesday marks the last day for the Bluefin-21 to carry out its underwater search for flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean, just around 1,600 kilometers away from the western coast of Australia.

Now it's carried out more than 20 missions over the last few weeks, searching an area of around 40 square kilometers at a time.

But now that underwater search is going to meet quite a lengthy pause, longer than we were expecting, while the Australian authorities or Malaysian and Chinese as well tend up a new contract for phase two. They want to bring this one step up, or they want one contractor to provide several underwater search vehicles, side scan sonars they want that will map out and check out a wider area in that 60,000 square kilometer search zone, searching for any signs of the plane, any kind of debris as well, all the black boxes, which could lead to the answers of what exactly happened on board Flight MH370.

Now that could take a couple of months, August at the earliest we're being told. In the meantime, there is a Chinese vessel in that area, it's just arrived a few days ago, that will now be mapping the ocean floor, unchartered territory, never seen before. They're going to map that out, collect the data and once a week send it back -- fly it back from the vessel to Australia where Geoscience Australia will process that data and analyze it.

And who knows, they may find something themselves. And indeed, we may learn a lot about the southern Indian Ocean.

Saima Mohsin, CNN, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: You're watching News Stream. We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, you're back watching News Stream.

Now Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the Ukrainian crisis next week with his French counterpart President Francois Hollande in Paris. And right now, Ukraine's Donetsk airport, it appears to be under military control after Monday's offensive against pro-Russia separatists.

Now the mayor of Donetsk says about 40 people were killed, more than 30 wounded in those clashes.

Now separately, four international monitors are also missing in Donetsk.

Let's get an update from the ground. Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is in Donetsk. He joins us now live. And Nick, what's the latest on the unrest there?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we heard this morning passing over us a Ukrainian military jet flying low, doing its best, I think it's fair to say, to remind those separatist militants in this town, perhaps their supporters of the Ukrainian military presence here, followed not shortly afterwards by reports of a tiny amount of gunfire near the center of this city. That seems to have been, according to a spokesman on Twitter for the separatists -- in fact, they were shooting what they thought was a pilotless drone, which (inaudible) back that up at this point, but as the broader climate of fear in this city certainly. People anxious to see what comes next.

There seems to be, Kristie, a political track continuing separately. We're hearing Reuters saying that Vladimir Putin may meet French President Francois Hollande at some point soon. We know that Moscow wants to talk to Kiev, that Kiev is willing to talk to Moscow, that perhaps the Ukrainians wanted someone to assist, a kind of intermediary, so to speak, maybe that's where the French come in.

But the key question now is are we seeing a diplomatic track move forward, which could perhaps stop the violence here, or are we separately into something which is about violence on the ground, one military pushing back against separatists? That's the hard question now, Kristie.

LU STOUT: Yeah, big question whether or not there is a diplomatic opening here.

And Nick, while we have you, your thoughts on how Ukraine's military, under its new president Petro Poroshenko, has responded to the unrest there in Donetsk. Are we seeing a more muscular response from Kiev here?

WALSH: Well, the timing can't really have been just a coincidence. This is the first day of Poroshenko as president-elect, and they made their most decisive military move yet. There could be a number of other factors. We know that the airport here was considered part of the vital infrastructure that the government, the pro-Kiev government, didn't want to see touched by separatists. They crossed that red line very shortly after Poroshenko's electoral victory was announced.

Or some suggest perhaps did the interim government lack the will to send in the military in a decisive fashion or did the military lack the resources to do that. They've been pretty much ineffectual until Poroshenko got elected. So the timing there people will assess.

And then of course there's the other issue, is the military trying to insist to its president-elect that it's able to finish the job here and rushing headlong into something it may not be prepared for?

We simply don't know the extent of their resources, or the extent of that of the separatist militants they're facing. These are the questions, I think, many people hope will never have to be answered because somehow negotiations will stop the violence here and calm things down.

But the issue still remains, the separatists and the militants backing them up against the wall here, and they're not seeing that level of Russian support they had hoped when they first started this.

Tense times ahead, Kristie.

LU STOUT: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Donetsk. Thank you for that briefing there.

You're watching News Stream. Still to come, police in the Pakistani city of Lahore say that a pregnant young woman was stoned to death by her own family for marrying without their permission.

Here you see a female relative mourning over her body. This tragic story when we come back.

And President Obama is set to push the reset button on American foreign policy. We'll look at the global challenges confronting the U.S. next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.

Now U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to defend his strategy on foreign policy today during a commencement speech at the West Point Military Academy. Now the president has been criticized for what some have called a passive approach to global issues. Now his speech comes a day after announcing plans to leave almost 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

Now the crisis in Ukraine will be high on the agenda at talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande next week. It appears the Ukrainian military now controls the airport in the eastern city of Donetsk after bloody clashes with pro-Russia separatists earlier in the week. Now the mayor of Donetsk says 40 people were killed in the fighting.

In South Korea, a fire at a hospital for the elderly has killed at least 21 people. Police say a dementia patient in his 80s is the main suspect, but he denies starting the fire. Now officials in Jiangxian (ph) county where the blaze broke out say most of the victims died from smoke inhalation.

And now, I want to bring you a tragic story from Pakistan. Now police say a 25-year-old woman was stoned to death by members of her own family outside a high court in Lahore. Her so-called crime, marrying the man she loved. This man standing over her body.

Ferzana Ikbo (ph) married him instead of following through with an arranged marriage with her cousin and she was three months pregnant.

Now police say that she was attacked on Tuesday in broad daylight by a crowd of around 20 people. The crowd was led by her own father and brothers.

And police say one family member made a noose around her neck while her brothers smashed bricks into her skull.

She reportedly died on the spot.

Now Ferzana (ph) was from a village in Punjab Province. And she had been due in court to defend her husband against charges by her family that he had kidnapped her.

Ferzana's (ph) death has been called an honor killing by some, but we prefer to call it an honor murder. Now her death has been tragically unique, because it happened in public in broad daylight, but it's not an isolated incident.

Now the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that nearly 870 women were killed last year all in the name of honor. Now the group says such murders are overlooked because the law in Pakistan allows it.

Under an Islamic element of the law, family members of victims can legally forgive perpetrators, even though most are actually related to their victims.

Now CNN spoke with a human rights activist who says it is a modern loop hole to allow a violent tradition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FARZANA BARI, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I think honor killing is very much part of our culture, you know, it's a part of -- like I say, it's a cultural form of violence, which is quite prevalent in certain part of Pakistan moreso than others.

For example, some of those pockets where there is a strong feudal and tribal, you know, hold, there we see this honor killing takes place more often.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Bari goes on to say that while religion is often used as the reasoning behind honor murders, it's really an excuse. She believes the brutality actually stems from the long-standing culture of male domination in Pakistan.

Now U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing the reset button on American foreign policy. He is due to speak at West Point Military Academy's commencement in about two hours from now. And aides say that the president will lay out his vision for America's role in the world going forward.

Now the president is also expected to defend his record against critics who say that he's been weak on issues like the civil war in Syria and Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now live from Washington. And Barbara, what will the president say in this speech?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristie, what White House officials are indicating is the president is going to lay out a U.S. foreign policy strategy for the years ago sort of closing the chapter, if you will, the 9/11 chapter on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and reset foreign policy to look beyond those two wars, especially as Afghanistan now draws to a close.

The challenge for the president is to show that the U.S. is still very much engaged on the world stage even though there are certainly is sort of an -- an indication that this administration has no desire for any additional conflicts using large numbers of troops, so how do you stay engage?

He'll look at -- he'll talk about diplomacy, about foreign policy, about helping other countries train their own troops to look after their own security needs, and walking that fine line between being engaged in the world, trying to influence events, but trying not to have any more very large-scale conflicts -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: Now Barbara, at the top of the hour we heard that very vigorous defense from the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about America's foreign policy. President Obama, the Obama administration has been under criticism for what some call a passive approach on crises like what's happened in Ukraine. What is his foreign policy goal in regards to that crisis?

STARR: You know, I think Ukraine and Syria both are seeing a lot of political rhetoric in Washington from those who want to see a more interventionist strategy, which is not what the White House wants.

On Ukraine, clearly all the indications are they're going to stick with the strategy of sanctions against Russia, diplomatic and economic pressure to get the Russians to back off, to let Ukraine determine its own destiny.

It remains to be seen if that's really working. It's quite interesting, we've had the elections in Ukraine now. We see Ukraine forces regaining control, apparently, in areas like Donetsk where the fighting has been so fierce. We see some indication that Russian forces in at least some numbers are beginning to perhaps back off from the border with Ukraine.

Is Vladimir Putin responding to these sanctions, to this pressure? Or is he simply achieved his goal of causing all this unrest and turmoil? Remains to be seen.

But at the moment, the strategy remains pressuring the Russians to back off and stepping up interactions with those east European neighbors to show U.S. support for them like Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, all the countries in the region -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: That's right, the U.S. president will be in Poland next week.

Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon, thank you.

And CNN will have special coverage of President Obama's foreign policy address at the West Point Military Academy in New York. It starts 3:00 p.m. London, 10:00 p.m. in Hong Kong right here on CNN.

You're watching News Stream. And coming up, Google is taking the driver out of driving. It has rolled out a new driverless car. We'll take a look at its specs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back.

Now flying cars, teleporters and universal translators are all sci-fi staples of the future, but now Microsoft is poised to make one of those a reality with Skype translator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was one thing, though, could you change the green to a lighter shade?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Yes, we can make the green much brighter

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Microsoft unveiled it at a conference on Tuesday. And they say Skype translator will be available as a beta on Windows 8 soon, but it will eventually be available on all platforms. Now it remains to be seen whether it'll be easier than sticking a Babel Fish in your ear.

Now driverless cars are becoming more common thanks to Google's efforts. Now they have used normal street models like this, a Lexus outfitted with custom technology, but now Google has unveiled a new look for their cars. This is Google's new self-driving car. It is not based on any current car. In fact, it's custom made.

Now it's smaller, and it lacks one key feature, it does not have a steering wheel.

Let's bring in our regular contributor from New York. Nicholas Thompson is the editor of The New Yorker.com.

And Nick, tell us more, walk us through the specs of this new driverless car from Google.

NICHOLAS THOMPSON, NEW YORKER.COM: Sure.

So what Google has been doing before is taking cars that are kind of regular cars and adding autonomous features so that a human could take over in an emergency situation. What Google has decided now, or what they've discovered over the last year of tests with the original car is that that's actually a hard transition to make. The person might be asleep, they might be reading. So now they've developed cars that there's no opportunity for a human to take over whatsoever.

So these new cars that they demoed yesterday have no steering wheel, they have no brakes. There's a little red button the human can press to turn them off, but that's it. You're on your own.

So Google has built 100 of them. They're electric. They look a little bit like gondolas with wheels and a smiley face pointed on front. And they go 25 miles an hour. And we'll see what happens.

LU STOUT: You know, I noticed the smiley face. And I think it's kind of a Google ploy, you know, because the car, it seems so cute. It looks like a toy, but it's kind of scary. It has no controls, no pedals, no steering wheel. So by making it literally painting a friendly face on it, will people accept this technology?

THOMPSON: Well, you know, Google's strength has never been designing hardware or products. The people love Google strength is software and mapping the world, so probably not.

I mean, I think it's a clever idea. People are going to be very scared. They're going to be very scared -- oh my god, there's no human driving the car. Google's answer, and something that I'm, you know, fairly sympathetic to is that what's actually scary -- what's actually scary is a human driving a car, because humans fall asleep, humans text, humans drink, humans make phone calls, humans get wrapped up in whatever they get wrapped up -- they look out the window because they see something interesting and then bam they hit your car or your bicycle.

So, I think what's going to happen is that over time we'll gradually accept driverless cars more and more.

It will be a long process. It will be a lot slower than Google wants it to be. But I think eventually we'll begin to think of driverless cars as something safer than cars that have a human in them.

LU STOUT: Yeah, it will be a gradual process of acceptance.

Now Google says it expects its self-driving cars to be on the road, quote, "within a year." That sounds pretty incredible to me.

Now the car we know works in this controlled environment. It works, you know, all around Mountain View, California, but will it work on roads everywhere?

THOMPSON: Well, that's extremely complicated.

So this particular self-driving car, it seems like it's basically designed for driving around the Google campus. And I think in a year from now, we'll probably be seeing it driving, you know, just within the Google confines. I don't think we'll see it out on the street.

Their other cars you are starting to see all over California. And you're seeing it in I believe there are three states where autonomous vehicles are legal.

Right now it really works best in Mountain View. And the reason for that is interesting, it's because Google has mapped every single thing about Mountain View -- how high the curbs are, where the fire hydrants are. The cars have preloaded information about every detail of the streets. So it helps them to understand things. It makes it easier as they go along.

You move the car to Boston or someplace that Google hasn't mapped, and it's a lot harder.

So, these things will start out in California. They'll spread to Nevada where there's a lot more open space and where they're legal. And then we'll gradually seem them move around the country.

And we'll also see other car companies, Mercedes for example, are starting to experiment with driverless cars as well.

So there will be a convergence.

LU STOUT: Our future of autonomous cars very, very interesting stuff. Nick Thompson, New Yorker.com. Thank you so much for that. Do take care. See you later.

THOMPSON: Thank you, Kristie.

LU STOUT: Now the U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, he says that the American government trained him as a spy and now is trying to downplay his experience.

Now Snowden, he spoke with NBC's Brian Williams. It was his first interview with the U.S. television network. And here is a part of that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEAKER: I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked under cover, overseas, pretending to work in a job that I'm not and even being assigned a name that was not mine.

But, I am a technical specialist. I am a technical expert. I don't work with people. I don't recruit agents. What I do is I put systems to work for the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Now the National Security Agency declined to comment on that interview.

Now Snowden has been living in Russia to escape prosecution for leaking classified documents on U.S. surveillance programs.

Now, Jack Dorsey, he is best known as one of the co-founders of Twitter, but his latest venture is the mobile payment firm Square.

Now they tried to launch a wallet app for smartphones, but now they're pulling away from that and they're focusing on small businesses.

Now CNN Money's Laurie Segall spoke to Jack Dorsey about Square and its change of focus. She joins me now live -- Laurie.

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY: Hey, Kristie.

Well, first Square wanted to help small businesses accept credit card payments. They've done that. And now they're pivoting a little bit. They want to help small businesses grow, and they want to do this through cash advancements.

I sat down with Jack Dorsey. He also was the co-founder of Twitter. He's now the CEO of Square. Listen to what he said to me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: Can Square, the company that turned iPads into cash registers, replace small business loans?

They're giving money to mom and pop.

CAROLINE BELL, OWNER, CAFE GRUMPY: Cash within a day or two. And, you know, for a small business when you're -- especially when you're opening your store, you're not having income, but you're still paying staff and, you know, people training.

SEGALL: Cafe Grumpy was able to literally take a swipe at one big corporation. They booted Starbucks out of a prime location in New York City's Grand Central Station.

And this store took over Starbucks, right?

BELL: That's right.

SEGALL: How do you feel about that?

BELL: It feels nice.

SEGALL: Square gives them money up front, and collects more money back through a percentage of credit card transactions. Unlike traditional loans, these can happen in a couple of clicks. And they only take a day or so to process.

The feature is called Square Capital.

JACK DORSEY, CEO, SQUARE: You download Square Register. We send you a notification. You can hit a button and it will send money to your account the very next business morning. And the way you pay that back, that advance back, is just by swiping your customer's credit cards.

SEGALL: What is wrong right now with the way small businesses are able to get loans? And what do you guys think you can do different?

DORSEY: What's wrong is it's just too complicated. We have this deep, deep understanding of our merchants, because they're running their whole business on Square Register that we can actually advance them working capital.

SEGALL: Financing can be a slow grind, making mobile payments mainstream has been as well. It's a challenge for the core of Square's business.

But don't let the blazer full you, Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, says he's game for the fight, guided by a punk rock influence from his youth.

DORSEY: The punk scene was the scene where like people would get up on stage and they would just play and they were terrible. They were absolutely terrible. And then you saw them next week and they were a little bit better and then you saw them the next week and they were a little bit better. And you saw them on the air, and they were The Ramones. And I'm still a punk.

SEGALL: You're a punk, but now your (inaudible) one of the Ramones, right?

So...

DORSEY: I don't know about that. I certainly feel the same amount of fight today that we did when we were first starting the company or when we were first starting Square. And I love that. And it's not easy. It's very hard. But, you know, we create valuable things out of it, and that's what matters.

SEGALL: And now you want to help small businesses fight?

DORSEY: Absolutely.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SEGALL: Obviously, Kristie, a lot of pressure on Jack Dorsey. He took a company public with Twitter, now, you know, he's under a lot of pressure to make Square work.

And one of -- I asked him, I said how do you deal with all this pressure? How do you go through your daily routine. And one thing he said he did is every day he walks an hour-and-a-half to work. He leaves at 7:00 in the morning, gets to work at 8:30. And he says he goes a different route every day just to, you know, get a little bit of inspiration from different parts of San Francisco and the city.

So, you know, it'll be interesting to see where Square goes and if small businesses are able to take on this money and to use this to grow in a successful way -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: Well, San Francisco is a great walking city. An interesting pivot there for Square and also for its founder. Great interview. Thank you very much.

Laurie Segall there. Take care.

You're watching News Stream. Still ahead on the program, not so long ago, U.S. President Barack Obama was adored by Hollywood, but is his allure fading in Tinsel Town? That next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back. You're watching News Stream.

And it's time now for your global weather forecast. And it is getting increasingly hot in China and here in Hong Kong. Let's get the details with Mari Ramos. She joins us from the World Weather Center -- Mari.

MARI RAMOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, it almost feels like it's feast or famine when it comes to the weather across much of east Asia. We've been talking for weeks already about the heavy rain and how millions of people affected by the flooding.

Well, now the rain for the most part has stopped. We have high pressure building over the region, just a few scattered thunderstorms here and there. But this time of year when it doesn't rain and we see some pop up thunderstorms already coming up here across southern parts of China, very close to Hong Kong. But when it doesn't rain, the temperature rises very, very quickly. There's a lot of humidity in the air. And that makes it feel even worse.

Some of these temperatures are pretty impressive. Remember we were talking about Beijing and those possibly getting close to 40 degrees over the next couple of days. Had it gone to 40, it would have been an all-time record high for Beijing. And actually 37 is one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the city. And that's saying something, considering we had that massive heat wave last year, remember, across much of east Asia that including Beijing and all the way down to Shanghai.

Well, here we're looking at temperatures that are extremely hot very early in the season. And this is quite troubling.

34 in Shanghai was the daytime high, 37 in Beijing, in Shijazhuan they had 38 and in Tianjin they also had 38. And compare that to the averages for this time of year.

Now, we're talking about dangerous heat. It has lasted for a long time. And unfortunately it is going to continue across these areas.

Even this late -- and that's always a concern -- when you get these temperatures that do not cool off even in the overnight hours that's when you really start running into trouble because the buildings, the homes never really have a chance to cool down. And look at Beijing right now at 32 degrees. That's extremely warm.

Hong Kong, you're right at 30 degrees with high levels of humidity. And there's a heat warning as we head through the next few days even for Hong Kong, because even thought your average high this time of year is 32, I think on Friday and Saturday, we would probably be closer to 34 degrees in the shade for you in Hong Kong. So we might have to tweak those numbers just a little bit.

And in Beijing, look at that, Thursday might be actually the hottest day so far this entire season and possibly the hottest day this entire year.

And notice as we head into the weekend, we don't see a lot respite from the heat.

And how do you beat 40 degree heat when you have no place to cool off? Well, find the closest water hall -- water hole, and try to cool off. Here you see some children in Islamabad trying to cool down.

Temperatures have been very, very hot both across Afghanistan, Pakistan and also into India. These purples that you see here, that's bordering 50 degrees as far as the temperature. Again, here waiting for rain to try to get any kind of significant relief. It's cooled off a little bit as we head across eastern parts of India and Bangladesh though. Back to you.

LU STOUT: All right, Mari Ramos there, thank you.

Now Barack Obama has long been popular in Hollywood, but growing concerns over the use of drones and leaks about U.S. surveillance programs appear to be sparking a backlash. And you can see it playing out on the big screen.

Jake Tapper looks at whether Hollywood's love affair with Obama has gone cold.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): They were once an Obama punch line.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I have two words for you, predator drones.

TAPPER: But drones are now the inspiration behind powerhouse plot lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why can't we use these machines here at home?

TAPPER: From a looming presence in the new "X-Men" movie to machines gone rouge in "Captain America" and "Robocop," Hollywood has created its own role for the administration's most controversial policies. Casting drone technology and mass surveillance as their top enemies. Andrew Romano wrote about this for "The Daily Beast."

ANDREW ROMANO, SENIOR WRITER, "THE DAILY BEAST": They are always a tool of evil that is an expression of the anxiety of the filmmakers.

TAPPER: In President Obama's second term, shadowed by predator drone strikes and an NSA scandal, films are flipping the script on the president who was once a media darling.

ROMANO: He still raises a lot of his money from Hollywood and there are misgivings that have bubbled up over the past couple of years and I think they have centered around the foreign policy questions.

TAPPER: In an interview with "Mother Jones" magazine, the directors of "Captain America, The Winter Soldier Psych" quote, "Drone strikes, the president's terror suspect kill list and pre-emptive technology as inspirations for the film." The criticism does not stop at the big screen. Worst case scenario in Fox's "24" play up drones potential dangers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The technology that was used to control your drone is going to be used in a massive terrorist attack against civilians later today.

ROMANO: The question is whether people are tuning in to these metaphors and underlying political subtext and whether they are just watching and eating their popcorn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's never been greater.

TAPPER: But then again, who needs metaphors? A-listers, John Kusack, Oliver Stone, and others use this PSA to voice their opinions of the NSA outright.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to end, not suspicion-less surveillance.

TAPPER: The question is, of course, does a familiar super villain have any impact on its real life counterpart?

ROMANO: When you look at polls right now it shows that Americans are generally fairly unconcerned about the drone program. If enough of these movies come out and they are always casting the drone program in a negative light, you can imagine that people's perceptions would start to change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Jake Tapper reporting there.

And finally we just couldn't resist showing you this. Rapper 50 Cent, he threw out the first pitch at a baseball game and as you can see it didn't quite go according to plan. And I'm really sorry to say this, but that video clip it's even funnier in slow motion.

Can't get over that.

That is News Stream -- that was 50 Cent there -- that's been News Stream this past hour. The news continues at CNN. World Business Today is next.

END