Return to Transcripts main page

NEWS STREAM

New U.N. Security Council Resolution on Syria; Escape From Homs; Survivors From Tsunami Still Living as Refugees; Mitt Romney Triumphs in Michigan and Arizona; Passengers Of Derelict Costa Allegra Face Heat, Dwindling Supplies; Chinese Company Proview Sues Apple Over iPad Name; 12 Anonymous Hackers Arrested

Aired February 29, 2012 - 08:00   ET

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


MANISHA TANK, HOST: A warm welcome to NEWS STREAM, where news and technology meet.

I'm Manisha Tank at CNN Hong Kong.

We begin this show in Syria, where reports say a ground assault has begun on the city of Homs.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney sweeps the latest two primaries in the battle to take on Barack Obama in the next U.S. presidential election.

And we hear the stories of those forced to abandon their homes after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

So, let's start in Syria.

Activists in Homs say Syrian ground troops have entered the Baba Amr district as heavy shelling continues there. An opposition group also says raids are being carried out in Hama and that all males over the age of 13 are being arrested in the Damascus suburb of Zabadani.

You're seeing some of the shots there. It follows a bloody day on Tuesday, when activists say 104 people were killed, including 50 in Homs. The U.N. now estimates that 7,500 people have died in the nearly year-long conflict.

(CHANTING)

TANK: Well, here you're seeing protesters show their solidarity, chanting, "We are all with you, Baba Amr!" at this anti-government rally in the southern city of Daraa, where the uprisings began nearly a year ago.

Well, the United States, meanwhile, is trying to draft a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria on humanitarian grounds in the hope that it will get the support of China and Russia.

Let's talk to Nic Robertson, who's in Beirut.

We'll get to that in just a second, but the latest, really, on what's been happening in Homs, where we've seen some really quite incredible scenes unfolding over the last day or so.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And indeed, they're beginning to unfold again, as we've seen over the past few days, today, but with a more ferocious intensity, according to activists in Baba Amr. They say right now they are witnessing the heaviest shelling that they've seen.

Earlier in the day, they said the shelling wasn't so heavy, but people in the city of Homs, around that neighborhood, that tiny neighborhood of Baba Amr, say they've been concerned and surprised because they've seen government checkpoints pull back. The people in Baba Amr say that they were concerned that there would be a ground offensive. This was an hour or so ago.

And in the past hour, we have now heard from activists in Baba Amr, in the Hakura area, the old district part of Baba Amr, who say that government ground forces have now entered that area. This is what they've been worried about.

Normally, the population in Baba Amr is about 28,000, there or thereabouts. Much of the population is hiding. They're not moving around, so they don't know what's happening in one part of the area compared to another part of Baba Amr, even though it's very, very small.

But right now, ground forces, government ground troops going into Baba Amr. That's a new development. And the shelling there they say the heaviest, as well as the incidents -- we're hearing Zabadani and Hama, just to the north of Homs City, there we're hearing that government forces have gone in on foot there, going house to house, arresting people in the house, any males over the age of 13 years old. And in Rastan, not far from Homs as well, there have been reports by activists that there have been military strikes, government firing shells into that town as well, as well as arrests in the suburbs of Damascus -- Manisha.

TANK: So, with all of this going on -- and clearly, Nic, the intensity of this government crackdown growing -- it would be imperative then for some sort of U.N. Security Council measure so far as the United States is concerned, but so far China and Russia have been the roadblocks.

How could you possibly get beyond that?

ROBERTSON: It seems at the moment that if there is going to be -- and this is what some people have called for, a way to rein in Bashar al-Assad and his military forces -- it will need the support of Russia. And some people have said that there should be some intense, behind-the-scenes diplomacy between the United States and Russia.

Russia is on the verge of a presidential election, and very unlikely that the next -- the most likely person to win the election, Vladimir Putin, would want to appear to sort of bend or weaken to U.S. requests. So there's an analysis that says even Russia, even if the United States was to get into some backdoor talks with them, is not going to sort of tell Bashar al-Assad to break down.

And Assad is so committed to this military route to put down what is a political uprising, or began as a political uprising. He has no alternative but to carry it through, and that's what's happening.

So whatever is being said in the West, the facts are changing on the ground by the day. The fear is that the Baba Amr neighborhood, for example, will no longer be habitable or habited by any opposition members or Free Syrian Army, and they'll be cleared out of there. And the operations, government operations, will move elsewhere.

So it's hard to see what the West can do at the moment facing this, where you would really need an immediate end to hostilities. And there's no discussions like that that we're aware of under way right now -- Manisha.

TANK: There only seems to be a lot of speculation, but we'll have to leave it to another time to discuss that.

Nic, thank you very much for that update from Beirut.

Well, activists are saying that 23 people were killed on Tuesday when government troops ambushed a group that was trying to smuggle out the wounded from Homs itself. You can see it here on the map.

Several Syrians and a British photographer did manage to escape across the border to Lebanon. And Arwa Damon has been speaking to those who got out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The relentless shelling of Homs has led to an ever-growing list of casualties, people whose injuries were beyond the care of the few doctors brave enough to treat them. So activists in Baba Amr made a big and tough decision. They would try to evacuate those most in need, as well as the four Western journalists trapped in Homs.

It was a journey full of terrors. Only the lucky ones made it to this hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon.

"There was an ambush," Ahmed Ferdi al-Hamad (ph) says. "All my friends were ambushed. I don't know what happened to them." Al-Hamad (ph) needed evacuation after being shot in the ankle.

Forty-year-old Abu Maha (ph) was also trying to escape. "When the army came, I was already in the car waiting," he says. "Suddenly, the night becomes day. They were firing flares, and then I heard intense gunfire."

Abu Maha (ph) says British photographer Paul Conroy was one of the last to get out. "He was terrified," Abu Maha (ph) says. "And then the guy said, 'That's it. No one else is going to get out.'"

Twenty-four-year-old Abu Bakhar (ph) says that a Spanish journalist, Xavier Espinosa, saved his life. "When the army started firing, I'm wounded, I can't walk. I can't grip anything with my arm," he says. "Xavier helped me along, got me into a house, and then the people there were able to get me out."

Abu Bakhar (ph) also tells us that at least seven of the wounded and 13 of the activists trying to help them out were killed. Others were forced to turn around reenter the hell that Homs has become.

Details are difficult to come by, but it seems that Espinosa was unable to get out. Nor was injured French journalist Edith Bouvier and her colleague William Daniels.

(on camera): We're not disclosing specific details about the route that everyone is telling us about, but it was the same way that we also recently got in and out of Baba Amr. I don't have the words to describe just how vital of an artery it was for those still trying to survive inside that neighborhood.

It was their lifeline. It was how they got meager medical supplies and food in. And more importantly, it was also how they got the wounded out.

(voice-over): Or at least got some of them out. It seems the Syrian military is ready to target the injured and anyone who would help them.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Tripoli, Lebanon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TANK: Well, let's really put you in the picture so far as the map goes. As Arwa highlighted in her report, the lifeline route used for this rescue mission is now apparently blocked, so let's look at the distances that were involved.

The wounded people were taken out of the Baba Amr district of Homs, and that city is relatively close to the border with Lebanon, although we can't actually reveal the details of where along that border area they managed to cross. They then made it to the city of Tripoli, which is in the northwest of Lebanon, and that is where they're now recovering. And you can see that right there.

On to very different matters. And we turn to Japan, where there's sorrow and anger as the nation approaches the first anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that claimed thousands of lives and triggered a nuclear meltdown.

CNN's Kyung Lah reports some survivors are still living as refugees in their own land.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Loud, raucous and in your face.

(MUSIC)

LAH: Then you get to the chorus of the song, sung to a Ramones tune, and you get you profane.

TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. This punk band, The SCRAP, says TEPCO destroyed their lives. Lead singer Nomitaka Takahashi (ph) wrote the lyrics for his hometown, Namie. Just miles from the plant, Takahashi's (ph) city died the day the reactors blew, becoming a nuclear wasteland.

Takahashi (ph) lost his home, his possessions and his job. He's living with his girlfriend now. His family, hundreds of miles away with extended relatives.

(on camera): Can you tell me some of the lyrics of your song?

(voice-over): "My family, far apart, looks up at the same sky. Shattered by earthquake and betrayal, there is no such thing as the truth."

(on camera): Why did you write that?

(voice-over): "I can't go home," he says. "I want to tell people the pain, sadness and isolation I feel because I can't go home."

(on camera): There's an extraordinary amount of public rage about this, the exclusion zone. This is the beginning of the 12.4 mile, 20 kilometer radius, around the Fukushima nuclear plant where 70,000 residents have been evacuated out of this area and have not been able to return home.

(voice-over): A year after the disaster, many of those evacuees like Takahashi (ph) are jobless and living with friends. They feel the world has already forgotten. These musicians, all impacted by the disaster, decided Japan's over-polite society needed a reminder about the evacuees' plight. No translation needed.

(MUSIC)

LAH (on camera): What is the meaning of this song for you?

(voice-over): "It's a harsh title," says drummer Koichi Sato (ph), "but people in the area are still going through a harsh time and still facing it now as evacuees." He adds, "TEPCO needs to care more about the residents' health."

TEPCO says it's made progress on the plant, now in a cold shutdown and a massive decontamination under way. But nuclear experts believe it may be decades, if ever, before evacuees can safely return home. This band doesn't have illusions one song will make a difference, but for the two minutes they scream here, it's some relief that they can't get as evacuees of a nuclear disaster.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Koriyama, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TANK: Well, that's one story from that zone, from that area. And here is the 20 kilometer exclusion zone that Kyung actually mentioned there.

Much of this area was once valuable farmland. The band you saw used to live in Namie. The name may sound familiar. Shortly after the disaster, officials there rejected a token payment from TEPCO, saying it only amounted to $12 for each of the town's 20,000 residents.

The southern end of the exclusion zone, well, that has a lower level of contamination than towns of north of the plant. Tomioka sits 16 kilometers south of the Fukushima Daiichi facility.

The factory and farming community was once home to 52,000 people. It's now a ghost town.

Coming up here on NEWS STREAM, Mitt Romney triumphs in Michigan and in Arizona, gaining precious momentum in the race for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination.

And a Chinese claims rights to the name "iPad." Apple fights back in a trademark court battle.

Also, a disabled Italian cruise ship makes slow progress to the Seychelles.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: Well, Mitt Romney is two states closer to securing the Republican presidential nomination. He won both the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Tuesday.

Romney fought off a challenge by fellow candidate Rick Santorum to eke out a narrow victory in Michigan. It's a crucial win for Romney, because Michigan is, of course, his home state. His win in Arizona was more convincing.

The former governor of Massachusetts thanked supporters after the results became clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: OK. First, thank you. It was the first state to call it. Thank you, Arizona. Great victory in Arizona tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

ROMNEY: And thank you, Michigan. What a win. This is a big night. Thank you, guys!

We didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough. And that's all that counts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TANK: Well, the results meant another concession speech of sorts from Romney's main rival, Rick Santorum. The polls had suggested that Santorum was neck and neck with Mitt Romney ahead of the Michigan ballot. Still, the former senator says he's making good progress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK SANTORUM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, we came into the back yard of one of my opponents, in a race that everyone said, well, just ignore it, you have really no chance here. And the people of Michigan looked into the hearts of the candidates, and all I have to say is, I love you back.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TANK: So let's remind you of the current delegate count. Mitt Romney has a total of 165 delegates after his wins on Tuesday. He took all 29 delegates in the Arizona primary. And as you can see, he has a significant lead -- a very significant lead -- over Rick Santorum, who has 44 delegates. One thousand one hundred and forty-four delegates are needed to secure the Republican nomination.

Well, Tuesday's votes were a test of public sentiment ahead of Super Tuesday, which is next week, when 437 delegates are on the table all at once.

CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser joins me now from Pontiac, in Michigan.

We can talk a bit more about this. So where does this leave us ahead of Super Tuesday?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Mitt Romney did what he needed to do, Manisha. He needed to win here in his home state. If he hadn't -- can you imagine if he had lost here in Michigan, what the storyline would be this Wednesday morning here in the United States? It would be very different than what happened now.

So, yes, even as Mitt Romney admitted, it wasn't a very big win, it wasn't a very pretty win. It was an ugly win, but a win is a win. So it helps Mitt Romney continue to move on, because if he hadn't won here in Michigan, the state where he was born, where he grew up, where his father was governor, it would be a very, very different storyline this morning. But he's still having problems.

Take a look at this. These are the exit polls. We questioned people after they leave the polls here in Michigan, and among very conservative voters, look at that. They're going for Santorum. They went for Santorum in the primary here in Michigan yesterday.

So Mitt Romney still has a problem with, I guess you could say, the right, the conservative base of the Republican Party. It hasn't gone away, even with a win here in Michigan and the more convincing win in Arizona.

And as for Rick Santorum, listen, second place is almost as good as first place for him. His campaign is very happy with what they did here in Michigan. They say, listen, this is Mitt Romney's home state, he barely won, and we forced Mitt Romney and groups that are backing him to spend a lot of money here, money they would have rather spent elsewhere -- Manisha.

TANK: OK. Well, we just saw the figures just now of how many delegates are going to be up for grabs as Super Tuesday -- there's more than 1,400 (sic) of them.

What is it that Rick Santorum could do? What is he going to have to do to get that differential between him and Romney closed down a little?

STEINHAUSER: True. True. Romney does have the lead right now, but remember, we're still a very long way away from the 1,144 delegates a candidate needs to clench the nomination.

So we move on to Super Tuesday. That's the next big round, as you mentioned. Ten states voting on March 10th (sic), next Tuesday.

And you know what? In some of these states, it's Rick Santorum right now going into Michigan and Arizona yesterday who has the lead in the public opinion polls. In Ohio, in Tennessee and Oklahoma, Santorum right now appears to be up on top.

In Georgia, another big state to vote next Tuesday, guess what? That's Newt Gingrich's country, I guess you could say. That's where he represented Congress for 20 years. And he right now is at the top of the polls.

So it is basically a two-person race between Santorum and Romney. For Newt Gingrich -- let's not forget about the former House Speaker here in the U.S. -- he needs to win Georgia, his home state, if he wants to survive and continue his drive for the nomination.

TANK: Yes, although let's not even get into the differentials between Santorum, Romney and the other two. We'll leave that for another day.

OK, Paul. Thank you so much. And thanks for putting us in the picture.

So CNN has more comprehensive analysis and coverage of the Republican presidential race. It's all online, and that will include a look at the latest opinion polls and President Barack Obama's reaction to the vote.

For all that and much more, just visit CNN.com/politics.

Now, a sports update is just ahead, and that includes a preview of England's first match since manager Fabio Capello stepped down. Pedro Pinto will join me with all that and much more. It's up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: That's a rather glittering live harbor shot across Victoria Harbor there, here in Hong Kong.

Far away from here though, England are hours away from their first friendly since Fabio Capello resigned as manager. A bit of a new era for them.

Pedro Pinto is here with a preview.

So, how's it looking?

PEDRO PINTO, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: Hey, Manisha. You're absolutely right, the first match of a new era.

England are playing against the Netherlands at Wembly later this evening. It's one of 33 friendlies taking place around the world on Wednesday. Stuart Pearce, the under 21 coach, will lead the senior squad into battle at Wembly. No word on how long he'll keep the job for.

Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand and John Terry are missing for the home side, while Robin van Persie missed the Netherlands training session on Tuesday evening and might also sit out this match.

As far as Pearce is concerned, he's expected to pick Scott Parker as captain against the Dutch and revealed he will never forget the influence the previous manager, Capello, had on his career.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STUART PEARCE, ENGLAND CARETAKER MANAGER: I spoke with Fabio a few days ago to thank him for everything that he had done for me. And I received the takes (ph) from Fabio on Monday morning, wishing me all the best for the game on Wednesday, which I replied to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much did you appreciate that?

PEARCE: I've got a great deal of respect for the man, for what he's achieved in football and how he treated me when I was working alongside him in this camp. So I'll not forget that, but that certainly goes for a lot of the managers that have helped me along the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PINTO: I've got some boxing news for you.

British heavyweight fighter Dereck Chisora has been banned indefinitely by the World Boxing Council for what it calls one of the worst behaviors ever by a professional boxer. Chisora, beaten by WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in Munich earlier this month, was involved in an ugly post-match brawl with fellow British fighter David Haye. The 28-year-old Chisora is also being urged to seek anger management treatment.

Hey, the NBA returned to action Tuesday following the All-Star break, and there were a couple of upsets on the night.

In Dallas, the Mavericks lost to the lowly (ph) Nets, as DeShawn Stevenson finally got his NBA championship ring from last season on Tuesday. It was the first time he met up with his Dallas teammates since he left the Mavs for New Jersey.

The Nets have Brook Lopez back, and that's good news for them. He made a huge impact on this game. More on him in just a moment.

I wanted to show you Anthony Morrow hitting a shot at the buzzer in the first half. Fast forward to the fourth quarter, where the Mavs were on a roll. They went on a 13-2 run. Dirk Nowitzki with two of his 24 points. And later, Jason Kidd hit his only field goal of the game to give Dallas the lead with under 50 seconds to go in the game.

Now, Dallas couldn't keep the lead for long, though. Lopez was fouled and made two free throws to put the Nets back in front. He had 38 points in the game.

Dallas, with one last chance to win it. But as time was winding down, Jason Kidd couldn't get off a good shot. The Mavs are upset at home by the Nets, who keep their slim ray of hopes alive.

That's a quick look at sports for this hour, Manisha. Back to you in Hong Kong.

TANK: Yes, wow. So close. What a game.

Pedro, thank you very much. We'll check in with you again sometime.

Still up ahead here on NEWS STREAM this hour, an international crackdown of suspected hackers. Several alleged members of Anonymous are arrested, but did the group already take revenge?

And a legal fight over the name "iPad." Does Apple have the right to use it in China?

That's after the headlines, right here on NEWS STREAM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: I'm Manisha Tank in Hong Kong.

You are watching NEWS STREAM, and these are your world headlines.

Activists say Syrian ground troops have entered the Baba Amr district of Homs and carried out raids in Hama and the Damascus suburbs. It comes as the U.S. is trying to draft a new U.N. resolution on humanitarian grounds. Activists say 104 people died on Tuesday. Syria blames terrorist groups for the violence.

Authorities and state media in Egypt are reporting that a senior al Qaeda leader has been arrested. The man is named as Mohammed Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi, who is also known as "Saif al-Adel." It's not yet clear whether he is the same Saif al-Adel who once led al Qaeda and was indicted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Mitt Romney has cemented his status as a frontrunner for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination. He won both the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Tuesday. The race was close in Michigan, but Romney cruised to victory in Arizona with a lead of some 20 percentage points over main rival Rick Santorum.

The captain and second officer of a container ship that ran aground last year off New Zealand's east coast has pleaded guilty to a range of charges. Those include operating a vessel in a dangerous manner, discharging harmful substances, and subverting the course of justice by altering ship documents. The two Filipino men will be sentenced in May.

More than two dozen alleged members of the hacking group known as Anonymous have been arrested. Interpol led the crackdown and immediately felt the consequences on its own web site. Atika Shubert is in our London studio with the details.

So Atika, what happened here?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it didn't take very long for payback to come. Basically Interpol announced that the arrest had been made in Argentina, Spain, Chile, and Colombia. And then very shortly afterwards their web site went down. Now the hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for bringing down their website. Interpol had made no comment on who may have been responsible.

But this is certainly the modus operandi of Anonymous. This is normally how they operate. When they feel that they are begin attack in some way they will basically come back with a response like this.

In terms of the arrests, what we know is that they spanned several countries. It seems to be sort of a Latin American led operation across these different countries. We don't know exactly that many details about the individual arrests. We do know that one of them was a 16-year-old girl and that these arrests were made in connection to denial of service attacks on Chilean and Colombian websites. This is, of course, an attack in which a website is overwhelmed and then it shuts it down.

So this is what it seems to be about. But again trying to define exactly who is a member of Anonymous, or how Anonymous works is very difficult, because as you know it's basically a hackivist collective. Anybody can join Anonymous. And anybody can become their target. They're very amorphous and trying to pin down the exact links is going to be very difficult.

TANK: Well, clearly these arrests show the fact that Anonymous is making a lot of people around the world very nervous partly because it is this kind of organization that has these tentacles and seemingly quite a bit of power.

SHUBERT: Well, it does in the sense that it could -- anybody could be a member of Anonymous. And they work individually, they work together, but it's not as though they're one entity. They can split up into many little groups. And if they decide that a particular target is worthy of their attention, whether it's Visa and Mastercard for the blocks they put on WikiLeaks for example. They became targets. Or whether its the Chilean utility companies, or the Colombian government websites that became targets.

Really, it means that anybody who joins Anonymous and carries out attacks in their name can target anyone. So they do have a lot of power in that sense, but it is a very amorphous groups, as I said before, and the links between them are often very tenuous. Anybody can claim that they are a member of Anonymous and anyone can carry an attack out in their name. So quite often attacks are attributed to Anonymous, which may not exactly always be the case.

TANK: Yeah, I have to say, it's one way -- you don't really know whether you put your finger -- putting your finger on it or not. Atika, thank you very much for making it all very clear for us. Atika Shubert there in London.

Well, it's that time again for Apple fans. This after the company sent out a rather mysterious invite for a press event that's taking place next week. Given the picture and the tag line, I think you're going to try and guess aren't you. Most pretty much agree it's to unveil the next iPad.

Well, this is all that was on the invite, this picture right here. And yet this was enough for Gizmodo to deduce that as rumored the next iPad will have a much better screen, because the image on the iPad in the invite is much sharper than a regular iPad.

We'll see if they're right when Apple holds their events. And it's happening on March 7. Of course watch the space. And we'll bring it to you.

Now lawyers for Apple were back in court again on Wednesday. They're trying to defend the use of the name iPad on the company's products in China. A small business named Prowiew trademarked the name iPad more than a decade ago and says it has rights to that name. Eunice Yoon looks at the Chinese company that's taking on the global giant.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EUNICE YOON, CNN INTERNAITONAL CORREPSONDENT: It's known as the iPad around the world, but here in China netizens are asking could Apple's popular tablet PC soon be known as the HiPad or MiPad here? It might be if a small Chinese company gets its way. Prowiew is suing Apple for using the iPad trademark in China. And it's taking the fight to the U.S. tech giant's own backyard, filing a lawsuit in California.

MA DONGXIAO, PROVIEW LAWYER: Proview wants to get Apple's full attention.

YOON: The two companies are mired in an ever bitter battle here with both claiming the iPad name is legally theirs. Apple says it bought the name from the struggling Asian electronics firm, but Proview argues the sale didn't include the rights for China and says Apple didn't negotiate in good faith, using a shell company that promised not to make competing products under the iPad label.

DONGXIAO: Using shell companies is not uncommon, but usually the conduct is honest. Proview was cheated by Apple.

YOON: In a statement, Apple says it bought the worldwide rights to the trademark from Proview in 10 countries years ago. It blames Proview for refusing to honor their agreement with Apple in China. And says a Hong Kong court has sided with Apple in this matter. The case is still pending in mainland China.

The concern is a drawn-out legal battle could hamper Apple's efforts to expand its business in China.

Proview has been filing lawsuits in several Chinese cities to stop retailers from selling the iPad with surprising success.

China is hardly known for its swift action against counterfeiters, shops that sell fake DVDs operate in the open, and unlicensed Apple dealers sell the genuine products but at marked up prices.

ANDREW MOK, TECH ANALYST: I think that it's going to increase the awareness of the value of intellectual property. And, you know, it's ironic that Apple is being sued by a Chinese company where typically it's the other way around.

YOON: Proview is seeking compensation and has been calling for an export-import ban of iPads ahead of a rumored iPad 3 release.

DONGXIAO: If Apple doesn't change the name, it will violate the law here. Apple might be punished by Chinese courts, or forbidden from selling the iPad 3 in China.

YOON: But consumers here say they'll take the Apple product no matter what it's called. This buyer says "I don't care how they play with the four letters." A four letter word at the core of this souring exchange over the iPad.

Eunice Yoon, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TANK: Yeah, it's interesting that guy saying I don't care what it is, I just want it to do what it's supposed to do.

Now you heard Eunice mention a shell company. In court filings Proview says it was approached by IP Application Development Limited. It claims a representative said he wanted the rights to an abbreviation for the company name. So let's just see what we mean here. You've got IP, A, D -- iPad right? Yeah.

Well Proview argues Apple's role was concealed. And accuses the California firm of fraud and unfair competition.

Well, from voice controlled cars to high speed tablets, this year's world mobile congress hs given consumers a glimpse of what's to come in the world of cell phone technology. CNN's Jim Boulden joins me now from the congress in Barcelona.

Jim, I would love to talk to you about all the freebies that might be available at the congress, but most importantly what can you tell us about some of the big names out there. I know BlackBerry is one of those you've been looking at.

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, the interesting thing is that Apple doesn't come to Mobile World so it gives companies like Nokia and BlackBerry a chance to show off what they have. And BlackBerry has released its new operating system for its tablet 2.0, also these cool white BlackBerry Bold 9900s. But of course if you are a BlackBerry user, you can't help but remember last October, the three day of outages.

Yesterday I spoke with Rory O'Neill of RIM and he showed me around this stand. And we talked about that. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RORY O'NEILL, RESEARCH IN MOTION: BlackBerry Playbook is now launched 2.0, new operating system. And one of the things that we're seeing here is a simulation of people at a meeting looking at content on their Playbook and sharing content in that business meeting.

Well, I think the demand for secure, safe, reliable, dependent, efficient tablet computing is unprecedented.

BOULDEN: Safe and secure, but we have had a few problems with the BlackBerry system going down a few times. And that really caused some PR problems. What have you done to improve that?

O'NEILL: So -- well, first of all, I mean way beyond the PR problem, I mean, you know, we deliver secure, reliable, messaging. For those three days last October we failed to deliver that.

Now what we did, and the beauty in a way of what we were trying to do there is we had hundreds and thousands of engineers focusing on fixing the problem. Two things have -- we have done two things very differently as part of a top to bottom (inaudible). One is put greater resilience into the infrastructure so that our global network that supports 75 million customers has grown incredibly over the last few years that supports 25 petabytes of data is robust and resilient enough to support that now global business that BlackBerry has become.

And then the second thing is, sure, we want to communicate differently, (inaudible) that will never have again. But we will communicate in fact. And it's all part of the BlackBerry experience of becoming a global company. And quite frankly the purity of our organization is that perhaps our engineers may be focused too much on fixing the problem rather than communicating the problem. But you know what that's something that I think every company can learn from.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOULDEN: Now BlackBerry also has a Porsche on its stand here, Manisha. Had a nice look at that. You can go to the website and see my interview with Rory inside the Porsche. However, I did ask -- then you do not get a Porsche for every BlackBerry you buy, unfortunately.

TANK: Jim, I was getting excited there. You know -- so I am a BlackBerry user so, you know.

Why don't we move on to some of the other stuff that you see in the huge room behind you. And I'm sure there is plenty of tantalizing stuff out there so far as new technology goes.

BOULDEN: There are eight halls here. So this is just one of them. We saw Nokia release its new phone called the Lumia 900 -- 808. And that has a 41 megapixel phone. That got a lot of buzz earlier this week.

We've also seen a lot of the Asian manufacturers -- Samsung, LTE, of course LG. And they're all fighting over the Android, how they get the latest phones, the fastest -- there's quad four phones as they're called, doubling the processor speed of what we saw just last year. So a lot of that out there.

We've even seen phones that can used underwater and tablets that can be used underwater. I'm still trying to figure out who needs those phones. Maybe it's also a case of yes the technology is there, yes we can build it, but do people need it? That's a lot of the questions we're asking here at Mobile World this week, Manisha.

TANK: Yeah, come on Jim. Do they need it? That's far too serious for something so exciting.

I will let you get back to playing with cell phones and sitting in Porsches while some of us do the real work. Thank you very much, Jim.

(LAUGHTER)

TANK: Still ahead just here on NEWS STREAM, a cruise they would no doubt like to forget. More than 1,000 people are spending another day on board a disabled liner in the Indian Ocean without power. When will they reach port? We are live in the Seychelles with the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: A cruise ship carrying more than 1,000 people is expected to arrive in the Seychelles in the next 24 hours after it was disabled by an engine room fire in the Indian Ocean. Passengers and crew on board the Costa Allegra vessel have been without power for two days now. It's the sister ship of the Costa Concordia which wrecked off the Italian coast in January killing at least 21 people.

So for the latest we're joined by Dan Rivers. He's in Mahe in the Seychelles. What's going on? I mean, do we know when this ship is going to come to port?

DAN RIVERS, CNN INTERANTIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest information we're getting is that the arrival of the ship is being slightly pushed back now. It's going to be about 12, 13 hours from the time I'm talking to you now.

Basically it's being tugged in by two tugs and a French fishing trawler, both of which are dragging it along at about six knots. It's still quite a long way to go, but pretty miserable conditions on board for those passengers who thought they were going to enjoy a luxury cruise and have ended up spending the last couple of days camping out on the deck. There's no power down below. Fresh food is running out, so helicopters have been dropping supplies of bread and flashlights so they can get down below to get their luggage ready to disembark.

But a pretty miserable experience. Quite a scary one as well. A fire in the engine room, it knocked out all of the power including the engines and the power -- the electrical power for the ship -- and left it totally helpless in waters that are notorious for piracy attacks, well further west towards the coast of Africa, but we're not that far away from the areas where pirates have struck before.

TANK: Yeah, I mean, what's remarkable, and I think perhaps sends a chill down spines, is that this is the sister ship of the Costa Concordia. And I'm sure people being stranded in the dark on a ship in the Indian Ocean must leave them with a very eerie feeling. Terrible for them.

RIVERS: Absolutely. I mean, there will be no one on that ship, the Costa Allegra, who didn't know about the Costa Concordia and the terrible events there. I would think everyone boarded this ship with a certain amount of trepidation that thinking, you know, lightning can't possibly strike twice. Well, thankfully there have been no casualties in all this. No one has been hurt. No one has been killed. But it must have been a very scary experience.

And then very boring and uncomfortable for them all, because as I say they're all camped out in the sweltering heat and sunshine on deck, slowly now making their way into the Seychelles. And we understand when they get here, they're making plans to fly all of them out, because the hotels here are choke a block already because there's a carnival going on here over the weekend. So almost all the hotels are already booked.

So there's not much relief in sight when they get here along and will have to board a plane and then spend several hours flying back to Europe or to the U.S.

TANK: Actually Dan I was wondering about that, because you know you've got the Seychelles which is so far out from, you know -- from a great land mass. So they've got a long way to go still, but then on top of that it is an area frequented by tourists. Normally those hotels are full.

Have the authorities said anything locally about what they can do for these people who have been stranded?

RIVERS: Well, reports the cruise company have got what they called a care team that has arrived here of 14 people that already putting the logistics in place. We're still waiting for more details from the Costa PR people who are here now trying to work out what's going to happen next. But the one I spoke to a couple of hours ago said he thinks most of the passengers will be taken to the airport and flown straight out. Some of them, obviously, will want to stay or make other plans. But the vast majority will fly out.

And of course then they've got the issue of what they're going to do with the ship, because it will come alongside here. And then, you know, this can obviously be a fair amount of time before the ship can be made sea ready again, repairing all that damage from the fire.

So again it's just a hammer blow to the reputation of Coast Cruises coming so close after the catastrophe with the Costa Concordia that I covered in Italy.

TANK: Yeah, one wonders how many people are going to be signing up to go on that ship from here on out.

Thanks very much, though, Dan for bringing us up to date. Dan Rivers there live in Mahe in the Seychelles just waiting for that cruise ship to come in.

So let's head over to Mari Ramos who is standing by at the world weather center. Mari, as I understand it, it might not be completely smooth sailing. Or will it?

MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: You know what, they've been pretty lucky as far as storms and rough seas. So seas remain moderate as best as we can tell from the satellite data that we get from that area. There are no particular weather reports from the ship that we have actually received except the very first day when they said seas were moderate. And I think it stayed that way.

Of course the weather information, even the Seychelles, you know, it's pretty hard to come by. But we do know that right now where Dan was reporting from the temperature there is about 30 degrees. They have light winds. And, you know, it's staying nice and dry with just a few clouds in the sky.

What we do know is that farther to the south -- there's where the Seychelles are located. The ship somewhere in this general area. There are two tropical cyclones. One here in the making across the central portion of the southern Indian Ocean and another way over here in the Mozambique Channel.

Now we think that this is far away enough that they're not getting tremendously large waves. We're expecting waves to probably between 1 to 3 meters. They may get some rain showers moving through. This is pretty close to the equator, so it is expected to be hot. I think if -- think about vacationing and temperatures are close to 30 degrees you think that's fabulous. You're staying by the pool. You're sipping your cocktail, your cold drinks, but that's not the situation for those people on the ship are actually facing. They're out there in this hot weather with limited supply in many cases of food and water so it is very concerning for people in that area.

Irina is the tropical cyclone here in the Mozambique Channel. We're expecting this storm continue tracking to the south. There goes another, or here comes another one right, because this will be the sixth storm to move through this area so far this year alone. So very significant. Winds close to 60 kilometers per hour, but it is expected to intensify. Rain on both sides of the channel is going to be a huge concern over the next 24 hours in this area.

Another one of our top stories here at CNN world weather has been the severe weather across parts of the U.S. Most of it happening right along this line here stretching from Kansas all the way up through Ohio. We have some pictures to show you of that area. And these are live pictures from our Missouri affiliate. I believe these pictures are from neighboring Kansas and you can see these are some of the first daylight pictures that we're getting of the damage that has just occurred in the overnight hours while it was still dark.

You can see what appears to be homes completely obliterated by what is believed to be tornadoes that moved through this area. At least one person so far reportedly killed. Unfortunately the severe weather is expected to continue overnight through the rest of the day today, I should say, and then even as we head through the evening hours all the way through the southeast and even into portions of the east coast of the U.S.

We'll be monitoring this closely. For now, let's take a look at your city by city forecast.

And we head to Japan. Look at this picture from Tokyo, pretty -- looks very pretty, right, but some problems with traffic as the snow came in early morning hours earlier today. The snow for the most part has ended and we're going to see conditions improve across much of Japan. That weather system moving on. Temperatures a little bit warmer here so we may see there's some problems with snow melt across this western portion of the island of Honshu.

3 degrees right now in Tokyo, 3 in Seoul. As we head over to Beijing you're at freezing. And 17 in Hong Kong. And I know, Manisha, some people are having been complaining about how cool it's been in Hong Kong lately, but it is February. It's supposed to be cool. No worries, the warming trend begins for those of you that love the warm weather.

Back to you.

TANK: That would be me, although I have to admit during these months, Mari, as you know the weather in Hong Kong is just a tad schizophrenic. That's one of the problems we're having here.

But anyway, thank you very much. You give me hope, because I am a warm weather lover.

Coming up right here on NEWS STREAM, making a splash, Germany's chancellor keeps a cool head after an icy shock. You're going to want to see this. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TANK: It's the latest viral sensation. More than 700,000 clicks on a YouTube video of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel getting showered in beer by a rather unlucky waiter. CNN's Jeanne Moos has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORREPSONDENT: It's one thing when you spill a drink on yourself, or when a basketball star collides with a fan who ends up wearing his coffee, but what are the chances of a waiter dumping beer on the chancellor of Germany not one glass or two, but five glasses of beer?

Germany's leader Angela Merkel flinched, but barely. In fact, her flinch from five beers seemed less pronounced than her cringe that time that President Bush gave her a surprise back rub.

The German paper Dos Bilt (ph) interviewed the 21-year-old waiter who dumped beer on the chancellor. And he said someone behind him shoved him. One aid clapped her hands to her face, another passed another dry jacket down the table. But Chanellor Merkel stayed cool. And the next thing you know she was toasting.

At the moment he dropped the beer, the waiter says he also dropped a curse word -- dropped it loudly, but the chancellor just grinned at him. At least he didn't try to clean her up like the guy in the movie Old School.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ow. Ow. Jesus.

LUKE WILSON, ACTOR: Sorry. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't touch. Really.

WILSON: I can fix it.

MOOS: But what's a few glasses when winning football coaches routinely get doused with entire coolers of Gatorade? The waiter who showered Germany's chancellor told Das Bilt (ph) he was still reliving the incident in slow motion like that Carlton beer commercial.

For Chancellor Merkel there are worse things than beer that you can suddenly find dripping down your back. At least when your kid does this to you it isn't cold.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TANK: And on that note that's it from NEWS STREAM for now. But the news does continue here at CNN. Our top team from Hong Kong, London, and New York on World Business Today are up next.

END