Brutal Suicide Attack Afghanistan Leaves 25 Dead; Intelligence Community Warns Russia Still Meddling In The U.S. Elections; Suspected Russian Spy At The U.S. Embassy In Moscow; World Headlines; Exam Rigging Allegations; U.S. Economy Adds 157,000 Jobs in July
STEVENS: Welcome back. We're just getting some news coming in to us at CNN. At least 25 people are dead after a brutal suicide attack in eastern Afghanistan. The bomb targeted a mosque during Friday prayers in the city of Gardez. Police forces are trying to help the 32 or so wounded people. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far. The Taliban released a statement denying any responsibility for that attack. Now, a national security show of force at the White House where top administration officials issued a blunt warning just a few months before the midterm elections. Russia is still trying to influence the U.S. elections, but as is often the case, President Trump does not appear to be on the same page as his staff. At a rally hours later, he didn't mention interference. He did though blast what he called the Russian hoax. And today, the president is trading the adoring crowds for a quite confined of his -- one of his golf resorts kicking off an 11-day stay. We've got CNN's Kaitlan Collins who join us near Bedminster in New Jersey. Kaitlan, obviously, a very clear warning, the Russians still intend to try and sabotage the U.S. elections. How do we interpret this sort of latest silence from the president?</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is exactly what everyone is noticing, this stark contrast between the president and his own administration officials who made that rare appearance during the briefing yesterday. They were candid. They were blunt. They said that yes, that threat from Russia is real. Now, that is not what we heard from President Trump during his rally last night.</s>TRUMP: I had a great meeting with Putin. We discussed everything. We got along really well. Now, we are being hindered by the Russian hoax. It's a hoax, OK.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): President Trump downplaying the Russia threat once again. Just hours after the nation's top intelligence officials briefed reporters about ongoing efforts by Russia to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.</s>DAN COATES, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States.</s>KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs.</s>CHRIS WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage and malign influence operations to this day.</s>COLLINS(voice-over): The show of force standing in stark contrast to the inconsistent messaging from the president himself.</s>TRUMP: Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): Still, administration officials insisting President Trump takes the issue seriously and has instructed his national security official to confront the threat.</s>PAUL NAKASONE, COMMANDER, U.S. CYBER COMMAND: Your Cyber Command and the National Security Agency are tracking a wide range of foreign cyber adversaries and are prepared to conduct operations against those actors attempting to undermine our nation's midterm elections.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): FBI director Christopher Ray warning that the FBI has seen criminal efforts to suppress voting and provide illegal campaign financing.</s>WRAY: Make no mistake, the scope of this foreign influence threat is both broad and deep.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): Those warnings coming amid bipartisan criticism of President Trump's relative silence on the issue.</s>SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R), OKLAHOMA: He's been the only one in the government that hasn't been paying attention to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What they said was important, but the president has been missing on this.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): Asked by a reporter how he explains the apparent disconnect between the president and his administration on display in Helsinki, the director of National Intelligence admitting he still in the dark about the summit.</s>COATS: I'm not in the position to either understand fully or talk about what happened at Helsinki.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, stepping in insisting that the attack on the 2016 election was discussed.</s>JOHN BOLTON, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: President Putin said the first issue that President Trump raised was election meddling.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): President Trump falsely claiming in a rally last night that Putin didn't want him to win.</s>TRUMP: I'll tell you what, Russia's very unhappy that Trump won, that I could say.</s>COLLINS (voice-over): Despite President Putin saying the exact opposite three weeks ago.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election?</s>VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA: Yes I do. Yes I do.</s>COLLINS (on-camera): Now the White House insists it was President Trump's idea that his officials come out and talk about election security at that briefing yesterday, but there is no denying that the only time President Trump brought up Russia during his rally last night, a rally that lasted over an hour long, was to say that the Russia investigation, the investigation into Russia meddling in the election was a hoax.</s>STEVENS: OK, Kaitlan, thanks very much for that. Kaitlan Collins, joining us from near Bedminster where Donald Trump is now in his -- one of his golf resorts and is there for an 11-day stay. Now, a suspected Russian spy worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow undetected for more than a decade before she was fired last year. A security review found that she was having regular unauthorized meetings with the Russian intelligence service, the FSB. Let's go now to Matthew Chance. He joins us from Moscow with more on this. What sort of secrets could this woman have been passing on to Russia, Matthew?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Andrew, I'm not sure -- well I don't think there is any suggestion that she had access to secret information or highly classified information. And she was of course a Russian citizen and therefore would not have been given access to the sort of inner circle of the functioning of the U.S. embassy here in Moscow. She would have been focused more on administrative tasks, translations, liaison with locals and things like that, perhaps she has some responsibilities in the visa office, we're not sure. But we're told that she would not have had access to that highly classified information that could have been damaging to U.S. national security. What we have learned though is that she would have had access to the U.S. Secret Service e-mail accounts and to the intranet so their internal internet service, which may have been something she could have mined for information that she is looking to passed on to her Russian handlers. As you just mentioned, she worked at the US Embassy here in Moscow for a decade, astonishingly, without being detected. It was only last year that she was finally let go or relieved of her position after a security sweep revealed that she had unauthorized meetings with members of the FSB, the successor organization of course to the KGB here. And for some time apparently, U.S. officials were aware of her activities and the fed her information that they then watched being passed on to the FSB to make sure that she really was sort of leaking this information or revealing this information on to them on U.S. activities. And so, you know, an extraordinary situation but of course the U.S. State Department says that, you know, people all over the world who are locals working U.S. embassies, not just here in Moscow of course, but elsewhere in the world as well, and they are always regarded as potential security threats and because they are often targeted by the domestic security services, in this case, the FSB here in Russia, as a possible source of information. And so, the way the U.S. officials are playing it is that, yes, this happens but nothing secret was revealed.</s>STEVENS: It certainly comes at a time of the heightened tensions between Russia and the U.S. and it is certainly grabbing the headlines. Matthew, thank you very much for that. Matthew Chance, joining us live from Moscow. Now, an explosive allegation is prompting anger in Japan. A reporter is claiming one of its most prestigious medical schools is discriminating against female applicants. The allegations as the university is now investigating, just ahead.</s>STEVENS: I'm Andrew Stevens in Hongkong. You're watching "News Stream" and these are your world headlines The E.U. is calling for full explanation of Zimbabwe's election results after Emmerson Mnangagwa was officially declared the winner on Thursday. Mnangagwa gets a narrow win just enough to avoid a runoff. The leader of Zimbabwe' opposition, he is calling the results unverified and fake. U.S. defense official tells CNN that Iran is carrying out a military exercise in the Persian Gulf region. A source says U.S. officials are concerned Iran may try to publicly demonstrate it can shot down the Strait of Hormuz. The operation comes just days before the U.S. reinforced the sanctions on Tehran. Turkey foreign minister says that he warned America's top diplomat that using threatening language or sanctions will not be productive. He met with Mike Pompeo on the sidelines of the ASEAN ministerial meeting. The two countries are in a dispute right now over the continued jailing of an American pastor in Turkey. There is outrage in Japan. One of the country's top medical schools rigged entrance exam schools to keep women out. The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun says the facts emerge from a separate bribery investigation. An online source of Tokyo Medical University tells the paper that in 2010, 40 percent of successful applicants were women. Under the alleged rigging, that number dropped to around 30 percent. This year, it was even lower. Women represented 39 percent of total applicants but only 18 percent of the students actually passed the entrance exam. Japan's education minister is asking the university to investigate and report back as soon as possible. The university tells CNN that it's investigating to determine whether such a case actually happened. Joining us now is Machiko Osawa who is a director of the Research Institute and Careers at Japan Women's University. Machiko, thank you very much for joining us. Tokyo Medical Hospital says it has to limit the number of women doctors to avoid staff shortages. Now, this is coming from the report. Is that actually a genuine concern because it's why women will take maternity leave and the numbers could fall or is it more just an excuse to discriminate against women?</s>MACHIKO OSAWA, DIRECTOR, RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN AND CAREERS, JAPAN WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY: I think it's just an excuse to discriminate against women that should not happen.</s>STEVENS: Why do you think there is this discrimination so -- what looks like so firmly (ph) in place?</s>OSAWA: Well, I think, as you said, the women may take a leave or they might left their career in the future because of the -- becoming mother. And I think this is why they don't want to take a risk of having many women candidates.</s>STEVENS: That's just on a specific case. It looks like the university actually was deducting points from the entrance exam. So the women sat and filled out the exam and then they took points away to keep what was effectively a quarter, a low number of women. That sounds actually illegal. Is that to your knowledge illegal?</s>OSAWA: I think so. It is illegal. But looking at the wider perspective, this kind of direct discrimination is widespread in Japan. So this is worrisome.</s>STEVENS: Well, let's just talk about that, the general level of discrimination in Japan, in corporate Japan. At what level do you see it? Just how widespread is it? And how many women are being denied their rightful place in the workforce?</s>OSAWA: I think it is high. It is also practiced in large corporation and also the promotion perspective, also limited for women mostly. And then also women are more likely to become non-regular workers. And as a result, we see large gap between men and women.</s>STEVENS: And which brings me on to government policy. Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, campaigned on "Abenomics" --</s>OSAWA: Yeah.</s>STEVENS: -- which was -- that was basically "womenomics." He said, we need more women in the workforce to promote economic growth to help the economy. So, why isn't the government being more -- taking more action, being more discriminatory against this sort of practice? What do they say?</s>OSAWA: I think this is the time that the -- previously just talking about it and this is the time for government to take action, a very strong action against women.</s>STEVENS: OK. Machiko, we have to leave. Thank you so much for joining us. Machiko Osawa with Japan Women's University. Thank you.</s>OSAWA: Thank you very much.</s>STEVENS: Chinese activist was in a middle of a live television interview when police broke into his home and China and forced him off air. Well known China critic Wenguang Sun was speaking with the U.S. broadcast "Voice of America" about President Xi Jinping's recent visit to Africa when police abruptly cut him off. The incident was recorded on tape and it is another telling example just how far Beijing can go to silence voices.</s>STEVENS: And just on the line, the activist was speaking about China policy towards Africa. CNN has reached out to the China Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comments. Meanwhile, "Voice of America" released a statement after broadcast was aired. It reads, "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinion without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." And we are just getting some news out on the U.S. economic front. Jobs for July has just been released. The U.S. economy adding 157,000 jobs last month. That is slightly disappointing actually, looking for gains around 190,000 jobs. The unemployment right though down to 3.9 percent. We got much more on CNN Money in about 20 minutes or so on the latest job numbers and of course the market reaction. You're watching "News Stream." We'll be back in just a moment.