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NEWS STREAM
Chavez Reelected; Pakistanis Protest Against U.S. Drone Strikes
Aired October 08, 2012 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM CLANCY, CNN HOST: I'm Jim Clancy at CNN Center. Welcome to NEWS STREAM, where news and technology meet.
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CLANCY (voice-over): Let's begin in Latin America, where Hugo Chavez is reelected as president of Venezuela, defeating one of the strongest challenges yet to this 13-year rule.
Pakistanis stage a protest against U.S. drone strikes inside the country.
And when a football match is more than just a match: we'll explain the extra significance to Barcelona's clash with Real Madrid.
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CLANCY: Wherever you are in the world, welcome.
You know, he faced perhaps his greatest election challenge ever, but Venezuela's firebrand president, Hugo Chavez, emerged as usual, victorious.
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CLANCY (voice-over): Sunday, voters reelected him to another six-year term. With 90 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Chavez has defeated opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski by about 10 percentage points.
In a speech following his win, Mr. Chavez thanked crowds of cheering supporters and called his country's democracy as -- these are his words -- "one of the best in the world."
HUGO CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA (through translator): More than 8 million compatriots voted for the revolution. They voted for socialism. They voted for independence. They voted for the greatness of Venezuela.
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CLANCY: Many of Mr. Chavez's supporters took to the streets to celebrate that victory. Paula Newton filed this report earlier in the midst of the celebration.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (Inaudible) official results were announced (inaudible) already started (inaudible). In the end, it was 54 percent to 45 percent (inaudible), a very (inaudible) from the opposition it was not what they were hoping for. (Inaudible).
NEWTON (voice-over): I asked this young supporter if she's worried about Chavez's health.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It is very important. I know Chavez was sick, but he's now fine and if he asks us to support him, well, we'll support him as much as he wants.
NEWTON: This is the mandate now that Chavez to continue with his socialist policies, policies that many say will leave this country much poorer in the long run. But in many foreign neighborhoods here in Caracas, they feel that Hugo Chavez is an all-new person who speaks for them and (inaudible) on those oil profits.
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CLANCY: Now for more from inside Venezuela, Paula Newton joins me now from the capital, Caracas.
Paula, does the health of Hugo Chavez play any role now?
NEWTON: It does. In fact, the focus goes squarely back on his health. You know, he's just been reelected to a six-year term. But he has been anything but transparent about what exactly is ailing him.
Jim, he doesn't even really look like someone who's recovering from cancer. He claims to have been completely cured. But he's not run the campaign that he's run in the past. You can tell he walks gingerly.
And it's just he's not what people would determine to be his old self. And I think many worried that because he -- this party, his party is not inclined to sit there and choose success, or because he's not being truly transparent about what's going on with his health, people worry that that is a destabilizing factor for this country.
CLANCY: For the last dozen years -- more than a dozen years, almost 20, Hugo Chavez has been a one-man show. Is there any way that he is hoping to imprint a legacy on the country of Venezuela in this, which is likely his final term?
NEWTON: We don't see any sign of that yet. As you say, this is basically the cult of one. And they certainly cultivated that during his campaign and made sure it was all about Hugo Chavez. The cabinet members around him, they don't exactly engender the kind of adoration that Hugo Chavez does, and that's a problem.
It would only be Hugo Chavez himself that has to determine that, look, it's important for me to put in a successor plan here. But right now, we are still seeing vintage Hugo Chavez. We don't see any changes to his policies coming up. And he hasn't said -- he hasn't indicated that he'll do anything differently.
CLANCY: Paula Newton reporting for us there live from Venezuela in the wake of yet another big Hugo Chavez win.
Well, a significant number of Venezuelans who voted were expatriates and here's a photo that shows Venezuela nationals on their way to vote in the city of New Orleans in the U.S. They had to travel there after Hugo Chavez closed the consulate in Miami in January. That was after the U.S. expelled the office's top Venezuelan diplomat.
The latest census taken back in 2010 found 215,000 Venezuelans living in the U.S. That's more than double the number 10 years earlier.
There are also thousands of Venezuelans in Spain, where voters turned out in force. There's even a Venezuelan community in Hong Kong. But it's not a very large one. There are just 82 registered voters in the city of Hong Kong.
Well, let's turn now from Hong Kong to Washington. That's where U.S. lawmakers are sounding the alarm over China, specifically two telecommunications companies, Huawei and ZTE. They've been investigated by the House Intelligence Committee now for almost a year. CNN obtained a draft report of the findings.
And it says this -- I'm quoting "China has the means, opportunity and motive to use telecommunications companies for malicious purposes."
Those purposes are said to include spying.
The report goes on to say this, that "Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted to be free of foreign state influence and thus pose a security threat to the United States and to our systems."
Now the two companies strongly deny those allegations. A Huawei spokesman calls the report a dangerous political distraction.
Huawei and ZTE are two of the world's largest providers of telecommunications equipment and information communications technology. They offer products that include routers and other Internet gear, vital equipment that connects our computers and lets our mobile phones make telephone calls.
Huawei and ZTE have for years tried to expand operations in the Western world, but both remain fairly small, at least in the U.S. According to Reuters, Huawei's U.S. group sales make up 4 percent of its total.
For ZTE, it's even less and most of those sales are handsets, not telecom equipment. The United States has a huge need for infrastructure like this. The U.S. is a growing $30 billion telecom market, so it would be a big blow for both of those companies to be blocked from competition.
Let's turn to Syria now. Opposition forces have surrounded a military post.
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CLANCY (voice-over): Rebels are said to be taking control of an area as they try to gain traction in this 19-month conflict. There are also calls for an end to U.S. drone attacks. Demonstrators in Pakistan want Washington to pull back. (Inaudible) talking to former cricket player, Imran Khan, who has been leading that march into the tribal areas.
Also, Mitt Romney on U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. Republican candidate lays out his plan (inaudible) preview still to come, right here on NEWS STREAM.
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CLANCY: All right. Let's dig down a little bit deeper into what's going on today in Syria and the region. Rebels say they're surrounded a military base in the northern town of Tal Abayad. This amateur video is said to show rebels preparing for an attack on that post near the Turkish border. The rebel fighter says he expects the base to be taken over soon.
Meanwhile, tensions between Syria and Turkey continue to rise. Sunday a Syrian artillery shell landed near a Turkish government building in the same town where five Turks were killed in last week's cross-border shelling. The Turkish military responded to that, firing two shells into Syria.
Now that artillery fire across the border has been going on for nearly a week now, some say longer. Nick Paton Walsh has been monitoring the situation from Lebanon. He's with us now from Beirut.
Nick?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: (Inaudible) saying, Jim, remember this is the fifth consecutive day, yesterday Sunday, of these exchanges of fire. And despite Turkey saying it doesn't want a war, Syria offering its deepest condolences, the five dead Turkish civilians killed by mortar fire from Syria, which began this, it doesn't seem to be affecting things on the ground.
This is continuing and the concerns are, I think, the confusion of the side where the Syrian rebels are between two well-equipped armies, may be causing this to get a little bit out of control. We heard the U.S. Secretary of Defense say he was concerned at the weekend that conflict could broaden.
Today, we're seeing Syrian rebels suggesting that the Syrian regime troops are suffering a loss of morale because the Turkish retaliation and perhaps even suggesting they're using that to their advantage, to push forward and (inaudible) may even have control of a swath of territory 45 kilometers deep into Syria from the Turkish-Syrian border.
So not really clear what's happening on the ground. But what is clear is that these persistent diplomatic moves to calm this down are not really affecting things on the ground. But a separate development to Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmed Davutoglu, suggesting that he would think it was reasonable if a transitional leader inside Syria emerged in the form of the Syrian vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa.
Now you may have heard of him before; in August, there was a suggestion that he was trying to defect and was stopped. Then there have been rumors that perhaps he was placed under house arrest. The exact circumstances not clear.
But the Turkish foreign minister coming forward and saying that he regards Mr. al-Sharaa as a man with a reasonable and conscientious approach, who's not part of recent events and did not take part of massacres, perhaps suggesting him as a transition figure.
Oddly, that's a move which the Syrian rebels who, in fact, not dismissed out of hand despite previously wanting all association with the Assad regime to cease, suggesting that perhaps under certain conditions, they might think that was viable. So diplomatic moves as well, Jim.
CLANCY: Nick, Farouk al-Sharaa's well-known to everybody in the region. He was the foreign minister and the public face of the regime of Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad. He was there when Hama was completely overrun and thousands of people were killed in a rebellion against the government. Why would the rebels support him in that position?
WALSH: On the simple surface, you might say that he's one of the Sunni faces of the regime; perhaps that's acceptable. Many rebels also being Sunni, fighting predominantly Alawi regime here. Perhaps also this is simply Turkey trying to see if they can get some kind of impact on that Assad inner circle after the last week.
Remember, they must be some people reconsidering their position inside Damascus. They even had Russia come out and make some strangely critical noises after the escalation of matters between Syria and Turkey.
So it's not entirely clear what this move is aimed at. But certainly does come as a bit of a surprise, as you say, somebody that close to the regime being seen maybe as a transitional figure, but perhaps also maybe the Turkish (inaudible) some sort of daylight they see here, Jim.
CLANCY: We're on the subject of politics and diplomacy vis-a-vis this situation in Syria, U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has no foreign policy experience, really is beginning to weigh in.
WALSH: Absolutely. He's due to give a speech in the forthcoming hours, in which he will suggest that Syrian rebels should receive (ph) heavy weapons. Now let me read you just exactly what he will say in this forthcoming speech.
"In Syria, I will work without our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad's tanks, helicopters and fighter jets."
Now let's pick up on some of the fine details there. He is saying that these rebels would have to share unspecified values; that's a pretty heavy caveat. And he's not saying the U.S. would arm them directly; he's saying perhaps somebody else, maybe the Gulf states already involved in getting light weapons to the rebels, might be involved in getting them heavy weapons.
But there's key daylight between him and the Obama administration, Barack Obama trying to be a little distant from this, always at this point, it seems, suggesting light weapons should be supplied but Mitt Romney very clear that what he sees in this speech is a broader conflict battling Iranian interests in this region.
The U.S. should involve itself by ensuring that heavy weapons that would significantly change perhaps things on the battlefield, taking out Syrian regime airpower, that they should be supplied to Syrian rebels, Jim.
CLANCY: Nick Paton Walsh, reporting to us there from his watchpost in Beirut, Lebanon, the neighboring Syria, on the situation that is ongoing there, the casualties already starting to be counted on this Monday.
Well, goods and oil could soon begin to flow between Sudan and South Sudan again. Sudanese state media reporting President Omar al-Bashir has ordered the opening of all land and river border crossings.
You'll remember the two nations reached a deal on several disputes just last month. The status of Abyei, a region claimed by both countries, remains unresolved. Mr. al-Bashir has told government officials to make normalizing relations with the south a priority now.
Israel is building what it likes to call a security wall, saying Jewish settlements in the West Bank need as much protection from attacks by Palestinian militants as possible. But some say the Israeli government has an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with security. Let's get more from correspondent Sara Sidner.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Christians say this procession has been taking place along this pass for 180 years in the hills near Bethlehem. But next year they may be stopped in their tracks if Israel continues its planned path for this massive security barrier.
The thick concrete wall being erected in Beit Jala, a predominantly Palestinian Christian town, is supposed to snake through the land of more than 50 families as well as separate a monastery from a convent.
GEORGE ABU EID, LANDOWNER: The wall, it's written on it one thing, Christians leave from this land. This is what Israeli authority needs us to do, just leave from this land. This land is not yours. This land is for the Jewish people.
SIDNER (voice-over): George Abu Eid says if the wall is completed, his family will have to obtain permission from Israel to access their own land and olive trees. So will more than 50 others Palestinian families. Israel says the wall is being built for one purpose and one purpose only: security.
JOSH HANTMAN, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTRY SPOKESMAN: Important to remember that before the waves of terror took over 1,000 Israeli lives, there was simply no need for a security barrier. And since that barrier has gone up, Israelis can go back to living their normal lives again.
SIDNER (voice-over): In 2000, during the second intifada intense clashes militants used Beit Jala as a base to launch sniper attacks on a nearby Jewish settlement called Gilo. The Israeli military responded. The wall would essentially wrap around another Jewish settlement called Har Gilo (ph).
IBRAHIM SHOMALI, PARISH PRIEST: The real reason of the wall is to take most of the Palestinian land and to put together two colonies, the colony of Gilo (ph) and Har Gilo (ph).
That's not a security reason.
SIDNER (voice-over): The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, something Israel disputes.
In the holiest places for Christians, the Christian population is steadily shrinking. Father Shomali contends his flock is another part of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He and his parishioners argue the ever- growing wall is a crude attempt by Israel to keep a Palestinian state from forming, by building borders that make it impossible to stitch a state together.
Israeli officials counter that claim, saying the wall has proven effective against terrorist attacks, which the government says are down by more than 90 percent. And in any case --
HANTMAN: Every inch of the fence is open to appeal and judicial review. And in many cases, part of the barrier have already been moved, based on successful appeals from Palestinians.
SIDNER (voice-over): The Beit Jala families have appealed to the court. So far, they have secured a stop order. The final decision is still pending in court. If they lose the court case, the Christians who have lived here for generations are hoping for help from another quarter.
On Fridays, they gather between the olive trees on the land they are fighting for, praying for divine intervention -- Sara Sidner, CNN, in the West Bank.
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CLANCY: Barcelona's motto probably says that they're more than just a football club. We're going to tell you why their clash with rivals Real Madrid was more than just a football match. Stay with us.
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CLANCY: Well, we're coming off a big sports weekend, a lot of famous matches were played. And often it's hard for big football games and the star players to live up to the prematch hype. But you couldn't say that about the latest Clasico in Spain. Alex Thomas joins us now with some details from our CNN London bureau.
ALEX THOMAS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, hi, Jim.
Jos, Mourinho has called Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi two players from another planet. And it's hard to disagree after both footballing megastars scored twice in a 2-0 draw between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
And El Clasico was as highly charged as ever on Sunday because of a protest about Catalan independence from the 98,000 crowd at the camp now (ph), but Ronaldo silenced the home supporters with the opening goal.
Messi scored the equalizer and then put Barca ahead in the second half. But Ronaldo also grabbed a second goal to stop Real's rivals from recording a seventh successive win. Ronaldo has 14 goals and 11 matches this season and Messi has scored 17 times in Clasico games.
Real Madrid will be happy with a draw than Barca. It lists Los Blancos up to fifth place in the table, while Atletico Madrid have drawn level with La Liga leaders Barcelona on 19 points. Our Madrid Euro chief, Al Goodman, explains the political backdrop to one of the biggest rivalries in football.
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AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: FC Barcelona has always been much more than just a football team, and that's their slogan, "More than a team." And it represents the whole region of Catalonia's 6 million people at least in the northeast of Spain.
So it's really a source of nationalist pride. But look, the two key players in the team, Cristiano Ronaldo, Portuguese, and Messi, Argentine, they're not even part of this -- the whole dispute between Catalonia and the rest of Spain.
So it's many of the players, even the Catalans on the Barcelona side, said this is really about football today and the politics have to be left aside. But clearly, it was there; you could feel it; there were more Catalan flags than usual in the stands, according to observers.
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THOMAS: Massimiliano Allegri says Italy's chairmanship title race isn't over, and he's completely at ease, despite another defeat that increases the pressure on the A.C. Milan coach. To make matters worse for the Rossoneri, their fourth loss of the season came against city rivals, Internazionale, Walter Samuel scoring the only goal of the game in the opening few minutes.
And despite having a man sent off, Inter hung on for their fifth derby victory over Milan. The West Indies sporter, potential fairytale story, for Sri Lanka after beating the host nation in the final of cricket's world T20 championship.
Darren Sammy's Windies Team won the toss and elected to bat first. The Marlon Samuels made up for the cheap loss of dangerman Chris Gayle by smashing 78 runs for only 56 balls, including six 6's. They'll decide post a total of 137-6. That's wasn't as much as they'd hoped, but in reply, Sri Lanka faulted and were bowled out for 101.
Sanga (ph) was being named man of the match for West Indies claimed their first major trophy for more than 30 years -- quite remarkable scenes and terrific celebrations in the West Indies.
Top seeds Novak Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka triumphed in Beijing on Sunday, putting their respective China Open tennis finals, both of them in straight sets. But Japan's Kei Nishikori really caught the eye, playing in the Japan Open against Canada's Milos Raonic.
(Inaudible) in the semifinals, though, and (inaudible) firmly on Nishikori's size (ph). And he claimed opening set of the title match after a tie-break. The North American player put up some resistance by winning the second set six games to three.
But inspired by the support of his country men and women, Nishikori went on to win the third set 6-0 and become the host nation's first Japan Open champion. Congratulations to him. More on world sport in about 31/2 hours' time, Jim.
CLANCY: All right. Alex, we'll be looking for you. Thanks a lot on that.
Well, you're watching NEWS STREAM and we've got more to come.
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CLANCY (voice-over): "Code Pink" in Pakistan, thousands joined demonstrations over drone strikes.
And what would U.S. foreign policy look like under a President Mitt Romney? The Republican candidate prepares to share his perspective.
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CLANCY: Welcome back, everyone, I'm Jim Clancy and this is NEWS STREAM. These are your headlines.
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CLANCY (voice-over): Voters in Venezuela have said yes. Six more years on President Hugo Chavez's Socialist economic policies and brushed aside concerns about his health. Election officials say he beat opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski by around 10 percentage points on Sunday. Chavez has been in office since 1999.
Syrian rebels say they've surrounded a military base in the northern town of Tal Abayad. This amateur video is said to show rebels preparing for the attack at the post near the Turkish border. The rebel fighter says they expect to soon be able to take over the base.
Two intelligence officers have been killed in a suicide bombing in the Afghan town of Lashkar Gah. The attack targeted a checkpoint run by the Afghan national directorate of security. A third intelligence officer was injured, as were 14 civilians.
The World Bank slashed China's growth forecast for 2012, saying the risk remains of a more pronounced slowdown in China than currently expected. GDP growth in China is now expected to come in at just about 7.7 percent down from more than 9 percent last year.
The Nobel prize for medicine has been jointly awarded to Britain's Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan. Their key contribution to medical science was the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed. This gives researchers a new way to study, diagnose and treat diseases. The other Nobel prizes, including the peace prize, will be announced later this week.
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CLANCY: Well, in the U.S. presidential race, foreign policy and fundraising are now front and center. President Barack Obama could raise nearly $9.5 million in just two days while campaigning out in California. Meantime, a reanimated Mitt Romney is spending time in the battleground state of Florida. He needs that one. Later today, he's set to make a major foreign policy speech in Virginia.
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CLANCY: Now Romney's expected to criticize Mr. Obama's handling of recent events in places like Libya, among other things. Let's bring in CNN political editor Paul Steinhauser from Washington.
Paul, we don't think of Mitt Romney and foreign policy -- at least we didn't -- but this week we're going to. What are we going to find out?
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR: Yes, we're going to hear Mitt Romney say that the president hasn't been tough enough, I guess, when it comes to U.S. -- the United States' enemies across the world. And as you mentioned, part of this is going to be the events in the Middle East last month, the killing of the U.S. ambassador and to Libya.
The Romney campaign has released some excerpts of the speech that Mitt Romney will give just about three hours from now at the Virginia Military Institute. Here's one of the things we're going to hear Mitt Romney say.
"I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region and work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination."
He goes on to say, "We must make clear to Iran through actions, not just words, that their nuclear pursuit will not be tolerated."
Now, Jim, we got, I guess you could say, a preview of the -- Mitt Romney's tone. Out on the campaign trail, the other day, take a listen to what he said.
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FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We face a time when there's tumult in the Middle East and other parts of the world, and people are asking, "Where's America? Where's American leadership?"
This is a critical time. If we were to reelect President Obama, I don't think we would measure up to the test of time.
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STEINHAUSER: Well, what do Americans think? Who do they think would do a better job on foreign policy? Take a look at this.
This is our most recent CNN ORC poll of likely voters. And you can see, the president has the upper hand on foreign policy by about 7 points, according to our survey. Remember, there's three presidential debates; one's already down. The final presidential debate will be focused entirely on foreign policy, Jim.
CLANCY: You mention polls there. I'm still waiting to hear, how did the first presidential debate that Romney seemed to have won hands down, how did that affect the polling?
STEINHAUSER: Well, take a look at this. This is new from Gallup. This is their tracking poll. They do it over a seven-day period. But take a look at these numbers. They broke it down before and after.
Here are the three days before the debate -- September 30th through October 2nd -- this is among registered voters nationwide. And you can see the president with a 5-point advantage; that's within the sampling here.
All right. Go to the next screen. This -- these are the Gallup numbers in the three days following the debate, October 4th through 6th and you can see it's dead even there. So it -- you know, from this one poll, Jim, it appears that Mitt Romney did get somewhat of a bounce.
There are going to be a slew of polls, both national and in the crucial battleground states later today, tomorrow and Wednesday. So we're going to have a lot of numbers to dissect, Jim.
CLANCY: All right. Frankly, that debate bored me.
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CLANCY: (Inaudible) tried to listen to it. The debate I'm looking forward to, Paul, believe it or not, this vice presidential debate, you got Ryan, young guy, on fire. And then you've got Joe Biden, I mean, he's the wily -- this is not his first rodeo. What's their debate going to be like?
STEINHAUSER: I think a lot of people feel the same way that you do, that this is going to be the more, you know, the more entertaining debate, the one with more fireworks. Both gentlemen spending a lot of this week getting ready for that debate. It'll be Thursday in Kentucky.
And yes, Joe Biden is known to speak off the cuff and Ryan is the numbers guy and a pretty smart man. So I think this is going to be a fiery debate, a lot of substance, a lot of substance but also a lot of attacks.
And you know, Jim, I think more is on the line now with this debate. Why? Because of the president's lackluster performance last week I think there's more on the line for Joe Biden to have a knockout performance. Stay tuned for this one on Thursday.
CLANCY: Yes, everybody's going to be watching it very, very closely. I'll be one of them.
Paul Steinhauser, great to hear from you this Monday. Nice, bright and early. Glad you could join us.
Well, still to come right here on NEWS STREAM, a flair for fashion, a top designer sharing her secrets on staying in vogue. We'll tell you all about that next in our "Human to Hero" series.
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CLANCY: You're with NEWS STREAM. I'm Jim Clancy and, yes, this week on "Human to Hero," we're going to walk the runway with Lydia Maurer. She's the new creative director of a leading fashion house in Paris. At only 29 years of age, she's already found her dream job. Take a look.
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LYDIA MAURER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, PACO RABANNE: What I love about fashion is that it's sort of -- it's the only way that art can actually go out on the street, because garments don't live on the rack. These garments live on the body and seeing them on any body would make me extremely happy.
Here at Paco Rabanne, I have to represent a fashion house that's historic, that is one of Paris' most important fashion houses.
I never felt attracted by the glamour; that was not the first thing that interested me about fashion. It was really the manual approach, when I was a child I was always very interested in images, in materials and textures.
I would -- I would do basically a crazy thing that would cut out things in my parents' book just because I liked them. Sometimes they say I even -- they even found holes in their clothes because I would just love the fabric.
My father's German; my mother's Colombian. As a fashion designer, you're chosen because of your background, because of what you bring to the table. My German side, which would be more the designer, the person thinks about utility, about shape and then my South American side, which is much more instinctive and into materials.
This is the spring-summer 2013 collection. But we have 35 sketches of different outfits for the show. Before we get to this, we probably have been sketching about 500 different other things, so it's -- there's a lot of volume to narrow it down and to perfect it to become the collection as it is in front of you right now.
The first part of the collection is always quite long. I sit down and I sketch, sketch, sketch for about a week and a half. Drawing just permits me to think and to remember what I like, and to show it, to communicate with (inaudible).
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MAURER: For me, really the moment when I feel most alive is in the middle of the night, when I've been drawing all day, and I finally craft it, I finally got that drawing, the lines that I really wanted, that's when I feel, OK, now it's going to be easy. The rest of the collection's already written. That's the moment.
I got an internship at Yves Saint Laurent because I basically sent them my sketches. I really learned the precision of the work, the necessity to make luxurious clothing and (inaudible) of the whole fashion world. It's very important that it doesn't move around (inaudible).
They really always appreciated my ability to put together textures, to embellish garments, but also my very sculptural cuts. So I think that's the sort of two very opposite things, are not things that are very common in people, and I think that's what they thought was very interesting.
I wasn't really able to apply so much of my talent there, not as much as I needed to. So I went to a smaller house called Gugimai (ph), which, in fact, turned out to be the best experience I ever had. I was able to really explore myself. That kind of readied me to finally come here.
Paco Rabanne has a -- is a very particular brand. I need to obviously mix part of me in it. I cannot just try to copy and to emulate exactly what Mr. Rabanne was doing in the '60s and '70s, which is the time that I admire most. But I have to bring it to the future. It's important to stay yourself, because as soon as you start losing your essence, is you start becoming uninteresting.
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MAURER: No one tells you what to be inspired by. It's your own inspiration. It's really about creating something that will -- that will make this collection live on.
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CLANCY: Well.
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CLANCY (voice-over): Marking a milestone in the age of space as the first commercial flight to the International Space Station. The SpaceX rocket (inaudible) fully launched on Sunday. Liftoff all of its sales on that mission straight ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- watching Dragon to the International Space Station and returning (inaudible) --
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CLANCY: We used to get this day off at school. His statue, at least, has towered over New York City for more than 100 years. And today's the day the U.S. celebrates explorer Christopher Columbus. And that statue up in New York, well, officials have found a way to make it a little more accessible. But as Richard Roth shows us, not everyone is happy about it.
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RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Christopher Columbus has stood tall in New York's Columbus Circle since 1892. One big problem though:
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: I've been living in the city since 1966. Columbus Circle's always been there. But I, you know, you don't look up; you can't see it, it's so high.
ROTH (voice-over): Faster than you can say Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, the city and a public art group set sail to bring the people to Columbus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watch out.
ROTH: Columbus had to make an extremely long ocean voyage to discover the Americas. To discover Christopher Columbus' statue here, you could walk up six flights of steps, which to me is a lot more arduous than a boat ride.
We're about to see him up close and personal in the living room.
ROTH (voice-over): Columbus may have discovered the new world; now New Yorkers and tourists enter another new world to rediscover Columbus. Columbus appears to have time-traveled into the future, standing on a coffee table in living room Americana, couch, cable TV and wallpaper starring Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Columbus stayed exactly where he was and this all took shape around him.
ROTH (voice-over): Only Columbus has seen these views before of major New York avenues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like to think of it is as Christopher Columbus finally getting a piece of the American dream. His own home, front row, dress circle, in New York City.
ROTH (voice-over): Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi, who specializes in transforming public spaces, brought Columbus out of the cold.
TATZU NISHI, ARTIST: I am so happy to have my work in New York City.
ROTH (voice-over): Some people are not happy an Italian icon is hidden away in a living room.
ROSARIO IACONIS, ITALIC INSTITUTE OF AMERICA: If they wanted to exalt the admiral of the oceans, see, they wouldn't have been hastened (ph) in this boxy frame that is buffoonery masquerading as art.
ROTH (voice-over): So I walked up more steps at Italy's New York consulate to discuss what was done to an Italian sea captain by a Japanese artist in Manhattan.
NATALIE QUINTIVALLE, ITALIAN CONSUL GENERAL OF NEW YORK: That's language which is supposed to unify people and different cultures.
ROTH: Now I order Chinese takeout. Will the delivery man be able to come up here to the living room so I can watch some TV along with Chris?
(LAUGHTER)
ROTH (voice-over): You can explore this exhibit until November 18th. Then the ancient mariner, freed from New York pigeons, gets major cleaning and repairs -- Richard Roth, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: Thanks, Richard.
Always like his reporting.
In Pakistan, protesters took to the streets over this weekend. They were calling for the United States to halt those drones attacks that are taking place in Pakistan's tribal region. President Obama has really increased those attacks. An area considered to be a haven for militants.
Now we're joined by one of the leaders of the protests against U.S. drone strikes, former cricket star turned politician, Imran Khan. He's on the line with us from Islamabad.
Imran, do you think you were able to make your point, even though you were halted from going into those tribal areas?
IMRAN KHAN, PAKISTAN POLITICIAN: Yes, I think so, because it generated a lot of public debate, both in Pakistan and, of course, internationally, thanks to (inaudible) wonderful brave ladies who came all that way and braved that long journey. And of course, the human rights organization Reprieve, headed by Clive Smith, who also came all the way.
I mean, it's unheard of, foreigners going anywhere in that area. So it attracted a tremendous amount of media and we managed to generate a debate against these drone attacks.
CLANCY: Now from the United States' side, there have been repeated claims that the drone strikes are safer and more effective than other means of attack against militant groups. They even claim that there are virtually no civilian casualties.
KHAN: Well, this is debated by people (inaudible) came across, the tribes, most of them dispute this. They say that the majority of the people are killed are civilians. And even in what they call militants, remember, every man carries an arm in the tribal area. Every man is armed there.
So how can they tell the difference between who's a militant and who's not? And according to the Stanford University report, only 2 percent of high-level targets are killed. So who are these 98 percent?
And secondly, it is totally counterproductive. This is really what I wanted to show on (inaudible). We had such a long rally that (inaudible) the drones and the tribal people could not really meet the international media.
Plus international media got stuck (ph). They were not giving them permission. Had they talked to the people of the tribal areas, they would have told you that it's counterproductive. It generates anti-Americanism, any of the relatives killed and joined the militants, they were the classic years of this boy who was studying in university, which I helped build.
And when his brother got killed, he left the university course and blew himself up in Afghanistan (ph). So you know, all during these people seek revenge by joining the militants. So I think that it needs to be a completely new debate and review of this policy.
CLANCY: Imran Khan, I've got to ask you this question, and that is that the ICRC, NATO and others have said that 90 percent of the casualties, civilian casualty inside Afghanistan today -- and they're on the increase - - 90 percent of those casualties are caused by the Taliban's roadside bombs, indiscriminate blasts. Is Imran Khan going to protest against that?
KHAN: But hold on. One is a cause; the other is an effect. Imran Khan is talking about how to bring peace --
(CROSSTALK)
CLANCY: They're both civilian casualties. Imran, they're both civilian casualties. Ninety percent are caused by roadside bombs.
KHAN: Let me illustrate categorically any terrorist attack is condemned by Imran Khan, any civilian casualties have been condemned. You go on our website, every incident where there's terrorism, we condemn it.
But what is the solution? Ten years of America stuck in Afghanistan? Eight years of Pakistan stuck in the tribal areas? There's no end in sight. We could be another 10 years there. The U.S. might leave Afghanistan, but this country could go down. So there has to be a solution and I'm afraid it is not a military solution.
CLANCY: Do you think that the use of drones, specifically something that detaches any human risk, if you will, from -- by the attacker, do you think that drones are dehumanizing, if you will, conflicts, making them somehow seem more remote so people don't consider these civilian casualties?
KHAN: Do you know what? I just do not understand how anyone can sit in front of a computer screen, press some buttons and (inaudible) people. I mean, I would (inaudible) 10 times, who am I killing? And remember, this information which they get on which they blow these people up, it might or not be accurate. It might be based on some false information. They might get it wrong.
They might have the wrong person (inaudible) and by the way, drones have bombed marriage processions. They -- last year, they bombed 40 maneks (ph) where they're sitting down these elders for discussing -- it was like a local parliament. They bombed it, killed 40 people.
They bombed (inaudible) rescuers. I mean, people come to rescue the injured in the drone attack. A month back, first the rescuers were bombed, seven (ph) people died. Then the next rescue came out and (inaudible) got killed. This is inhuman. It violates all humanitarian laws.
I (inaudible) the U.S. should really review this, because it's -- all it's doing is creating anti-Americanism and the U.S. is not winning a war.
CLANCY: Imran Khan, a politician and, of course, we all know him from his days in cricket. I thank you very much for being with us and talking about this protest march, to try to highlight the cost of drone attacks there in Pakistan's tribal regions.
Well, staying in Asia, there's really heavy rain across parts of Thailand and Mari Ramos is at the CNN World Weather Center with details.
Mari?
MARI RAMOS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, people across Thailand were worried about the remnants of what was a tropical storm affecting that region. And you know what, it has brought some very heavy rain. But fortunately, so far the flooding has been across northern portions of the region, and it hasn't reached some of the more densely populated areas of the south, including Bangkok.
I want to show you first of all what we have as far as the satellite image. And it doesn't look like much anymore. But we have a tropical storm that made landfall in Vietnam over the weekend. It brought some very heavy rain across these areas and also across Cambodia. The remnants of that storm are kind of riding along here, this -- the monsoon trough, so to speak, of that line of monsoon rains.
And it has brought some very heavy rain across northeastern Thailand in particular. But now we're starting to see that rain across the south. And there is the potential for flooding again for cities like Bangkok.
And people there on alert and just the nerves on edge because of what happened last year, with that massive flooding that occurred across those areas. I'm going to tell you, the problem is not just the rain that's falling now, which can cause a problem, but also the runoff of coming from the north in the combination of the (inaudible) really puts that entire region at risk.
So there's the remnants of what was tropical storm Noemi after it made landfall. So here's the area where it's going to continue affecting at least through tonight and early into tomorrow. These are going to be the areas that are going to have the heaviest rain. So be extra careful and do expect significant travel delays.
As we look over here, and then back over into western parts of Thailand, moving into Myanmar, some areas could get an additional 8 centimeters of rainfall. So the potential for flooding remains. Be extra careful and unfortunately, that rain will stick around for at least another few days.
As we take a look at areas here to the north across east Asia, definitely feeling a lot more like autumn now, a little warm in Hong Kong right now at 27, but some cooler air is headed your way as we head to the middle portions of the week.
Generally looking very dry over the region, we have one front that's coming through and after that moves on, we're going to start to see a bit of an improvement here. Those rain showers will move through, beneficial rain overall, the highest elevations could even get some snow (inaudible) with this weather system that fall finally begins to filter in.
And we had a little bit of a taste of fall with the strong cold front that has moved across the eastern United States. Now that brought, as it moved across the west, some strong winds there and delayed a really important launch that was supposed to happen this morning. It is called the flight to the edge of space. Take a look at these pictures and let's meet the guy who's going to do it.
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FELIX BAUMGARTNER, BASE JUMPER: I'm going to be the first human person in freefall that's breaking the speed of sound.
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RAMOS (voice-over): Going to go up in space to about 120,000 feet in a stratospheric balloon. Can you imagine that? And then he has to jump very, very still, Jim. I don't know if you heard about this.
CLANCY (voice-over): Still, from that high up, I'd be waving my arms.
RAMOS (voice-over): Can you imagine? He's going to be higher than thunderstorm clouds, higher than airplanes fly, of course. He has to jump out of that balloon very, very still, because they're concerned that he could go into a freefall and then he will continue falling down. They say it's biometrics engineering, all kinds of amazing things that will --
(CROSSTALK)
CLANCY: (Inaudible) done that.
RAMOS: (Inaudible).
CLANCY: They really don't know what effect it'll have on his body, do they?
RAMOS: No, they really don't. But the record was much lower than that and it was set more than 50 years ago. So he'll be that high. Isn't that amazing?
(LAUGHTER)
CLANCY: You know, everybody's going to look up. They're going to wonder.
RAMOS: Yes, this is Mt. Everest down here.
CLANCY: All right. All right.
RAMOS: This is where he will be.
CLANCY: Well, you know, what do you call a UFO if isn't unidentified? He may qualify.
RAMOS: There you go.
CLANCY: Frank.
The U.S. Air Force went with project 1794. Really, that's what they called it. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, no. But these were recently declassified records holding specifications for a real-life flying saucer. It was designed back in 1956. Now in theory, it would take off and land vertically with a top speed of Mach 4. That's four times the speed of sound.
A final report on the aircraft called it feasible, but the price tag may have prevented the project from taking off. Guess how much this puppy was going to cost? Twenty-six million dollars in today's money -- that would hardly buy you a wheel on some of the jets that the U.S. military puts up today.
All right. That has to do it for NEWS STREAM. But the news continues, where else but right here? "WORLD BUSINESS TODAY" is straight ahead.
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