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Chavez Still Struggling in Venezuela; Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail, Strict Conditions; Health Dept. Probes Hotel Water Tank; Group Plans to Send People To Mars; Nine Movies Vying for Best Picture

Aired February 22, 2013 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL, where we take you around the world in 60 minutes. Here is what's going on right now.

New Englanders, now bracing for a brutal winter storm.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, as much of a foot of snow could blanket the region this weekend, all part of the same system that brought all that snow to the Midwest and drenched the South with torrential downpours.

MALVEAUX: In Venezuela, a government spokesman says President Hugo Chavez is struggling with breathing problems despite having a trach to help him breathe better. This is just days after his return from two months of cancer treatment in Cuba.

HOLMES: Yeah, critics say the government is hiding the serious of his illness. They've been saying that for a long time. He was not well enough, of course, to be actually officially sworn into office last month. A lot of people doubting just how bad this is.

MALVEAUX: It is the hour's top international story, and CNN, of course, we're all talking about it, Oscar Pistorius out of jail. The Olympic track star, South African national hero, granted bail today in Pretoria. This is just one week after the shooting death of his girlfriend.

HOLMES: Yeah, prosecutors are calling this premeditated murder. The defense objects to that.

Now, the next court date, it's really a procedural court date. That's going to be in June, June 4, in fact. The South African chief magistrate telling the court room he does not see Pistorius as a flight risk, which the prosecution claimed, and put a list of conditions on bail.

MALVEAUX: So, he's not allowed to go back to his house. He has to hand over his passport. Prosecutors plan to argue Pistorius intentionally shot his girlfriend to death in a bathroom in his home. He says it was all an accident because he thought that she was an intruder.

HOLMES: Yeah, let's go live now to Pretoria, talk to Llewellyn Curlewis. He's a South African attorney and law professor.

Lllewelyn, good to see you. The other day you told us that you hoped Oscar Pistorius would get bail. Well, that has happened, obviously, good news for him. But tell us what it says about the entire case, in particular when you see the magistrate, as he did, shooting holes in how the prosecution and the police went about prosecuting this stage of the case.

LLEWELYN CURLEWIS, LAW LECTURER, UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA: Yes, ultimately, we came to the end of the -- and the conclusion of the bail application and it was a long day. It was a long week. But ultimately I think the magistrate poked some loopholes in both the defense case as well as that of the prosecuting authority.

Ultimately, we must be mindful of the fact that we are still at the beginning of the matter. This is early stages. There's still a mountain to climb for both the defense as well as the state, and ultimately, a lot of work to be done by both sides.

MALVEAUX: And, Llewelyn, we heard the fact that, yeah, you say both sides, they now go back to their respective corners. They figure out where their arguments were flawed. They come back, I guess, by the end of the year with a new trial, or with a trial, I should say.

How does the role of public opinion play in all of this? You've got a judge here, very different than the American system, and the court of public opinion. How does that factor into how the judge sees his fate?

CURLEWIS: You must remember that we don't have a jury system in South Africa, but we do, however, every now and then, make use of (INAUDIBLE). That's the first major difference between ourselves and the American system, obviously. And also take into account that in the South Africa law, we have the situation where there are competent verdicts in our criminal procedure, both into the main charge.

In this instance, we will typically see Oscar Pistorius will also face a charge of culpable homicide which more of less amounts to manslaughter in the American system. In other words, one would have to look at the points of dispute between the state and the defense, and, ultimately, if it boils down to a difference between intent and what we call negligence, then we might be in for a fight in the trial itself.

Obviously, if ultimately, the state can prove intent, they should be successful with the murder charge. If not, they will proceed with the negligence charge and try to secure a conviction of culpable homicide, which in our law only requires one-percentage negligence.

MALVEAUX: OK, Llewelyn, really quickly here, where does he go from here? He's obviously -- he's not allowed to go home because it's a crime scene. Does he go with his family? Does he get security or protection as he travels around in the country?

CURLEWIS: What will happen, typically, obviously, tonight, he will spend time with his family, probably with his dad and his sister and maybe a couple of other friends. He's not allowed to go near his own home, and the reason for that is, pure and simple, because there's still a lot of investigating work to be done, forensic evidence to be obtained by the state. That can only be done in due course by the prosecuting authority, and they don't want Mr. Oscar Pistorius or his relatives, friends and colleagues to interfere with that.

So, ultimately, there is a lot of other conditions set to the bail, as well. Obviously, there was an amount set in the area of 1 million rands, which, more or less, is $100,000 U.S. dollars, if I'm not mistaken, roundabout. He is not able to leave the jurisdictional area of Pretoria or (INAUDIBLE) without the court's permission and so forth and so on.

HOLMES: Yeah, and he's got to give up the guns and a lot of it pretty standard stuff.

Llewelyn, good to see you. Llewelyn Curlewis there in Pretoria.

And that is the big difference, the no-jury thing, so, you know, a lot of the emotional stuff that you see maybe to try to sway a jury member one way or the other, not going to happen in this case. You're dealing with a judge who, theoretically, is totally impartial.

MALVEAUX: And it's a different judge than the one we saw in this proceeding.

HOLMES: Yeah. Yeah, this was the chief magistrate. The next one will go to the judge. Yeah.

MALVEAUX: All right, thank you.

After discovery of this body in a water tank, a California hotel is now reeling, the Cecil Hotel, trying to repair the damage. We're going to actually talk to the guests.

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HOLMES: Talk about stories that have got people talking, we've been talking about this one all week, that grisly tale of the Canadian tourist's body found in a hotel water tank.

MALVEAUX: Well, now, the L.A. health department says that hotel guests who actually drank the same water for more than two weeks with a dead body in the tank, yeah, OK, they don't have anything to worry about. The tests came up negative for harmful bacteria.

Our Kyung Lah, she actually went inside of this hotel.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Water from the tap, something the Cecil Hotel doesn't want you to see.

Hotel resident Alvin Taylor helped us videotape it with a cell phone.

Chlorine, what the city is using to flush the hotel's entire water system after the gruesome discovery of a woman's body inside one of the rooftop tanks that may have been there for as long as two and a half weeks.

Four tanks connect to the hotel's drinking supply and, during those weeks, hundreds of residents and hotel guests have been using it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really turns my stomach. That's why a lot of people have left and went to another hotel, just the thought of it for so long.

LAH: The woman inside the tank, 21-year-old Elisa Lam. The tourist from Vancouver, Canada, arrived in Los Angeles on January 26. Surveillance video shows her acting oddly inside the hotel elevator, as if she's hiding from someone.

But Katie Orphan says Lam didn't seem odd at all when they met.

KATIE ORPHAN, MANAGER, THE LAST BOOKSTORE: She very outgoing, very lively, very friendly.

LAH: Orphan is the manager of a bookstore around the corner from the hotel called The Last Bookstore, one of the last places Lam was seen by anyone as she bought records and presents for her parents and sister.

ORPHAN: Talking about what book she was getting and whether or not what she was getting would be too heavy for her to carry around as she traveled or take home with her.

LAH: That was January 31st. The young woman planned to see more of California, say police. Her parents flew down to Los Angeles to plead for the city to help find their daughter.

Outside the family's restaurant near Vancouver, a memorial for a young life lost too soon in an unforgettable manner.

ORPHAN: It kind of feels like the beginning of a noir novel, like the beginning of a Raymond Chandler story, and Philip Marlowe is going to figure out what happened. And, unfortunately, this is real life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Kyung Lah, she's joining us live from L.A. So, Kyung, obviously, it's a heartbreaking story for this poor woman, this victim here, and a lot of concern, health concerns of those who were staying in the hotel. Do we have any other information from the investigation or the autopsy about what went actually down?

LAH: Well, we know, Suzanne, that the L.A. County coroner has completed the first phase of the autopsy. We call it the first phase because the cause of death right now is being deferred.

Remember, this is a body that has been submerged in water for some time. It is not going to be very simple. They have to go through toxicology reports. They're not expecting a cause of death until about two months, so we've got to pay attention to this one.

HOLMES: Kyung, let's get back to that health report. A lot of people, even around here, we're saying, how on earth could it not have had harmful bacteria in it when you've got a body sitting in the drinking water tank?

LAH: Yeah, sort of defies common sense, except we're talking about science here. What the scientists here from the L.A. Department of Public Health are telling us is that there are a couple of factors. It's been cool in Los Angeles. The water temperature in that tank was cool. That, combined with the fact that, in city water there is a certain level of chlorine to kill all of those bugs, those two factors made the water, distasteful though it may sound, still safe to drink.

HOLMES: Oh my goodness, me. Kyung Lah, good to see you. Thanks so much. What a story.

MALVEAUX: So this is called "A Mission for America." This is pretty cool. We're talking about this millionaire who wants to see somebody put on Mars.

HOLMES: That's right. Someone, not a man on Mars, a person on Mars.

MALVEAUX: Yeah, we're going with "person" here.

HOLMES: We'll show you how he plans to put he or she there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Welcome back, everyone. India, getting into the global space race and seeing red.

MALVEAUX: So, the country planning to launch an unmanned spacecraft to Mars in November. The journey is going to take about nine months, cost $83 million. It's worth it, don't you think?

HOLMES: Well, every penny. The prime minister calls it a pretty huge step for India, not surprisingly.

MALVEAUX: And, of course, an American non-profit group planning a different kind of mission to Mars. Wants to actually send humans to the planet. That's in the next five years or so.

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Would you go?

HOLMES: No. I'm a bit busy.

MALVEAUX: (INAUDIBLE).

HOLMES: I'm washing my hair that day.

The idea my sound a little farfetched, but the people behind this know something about space travel. So does John Zarrella. Here's his report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mars. We should have been there already. Just ask the head of the Mars Society, who decades ago worked on concepts for human missions.

ROBERT ZUBRIN, PRES., THE MARS SOCIETY: If the Apollo program had not been orphaned and abandoned, the first children born on Mars would probably be entering high school right about now.

ZARRELLA: Just ask the last man to walk on the moon.

GENE CERNAN, APOLLO 17 ASTRONAUT: We're going to be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century. I said that in 1973. Gave me 27 -- over 27 years to be proven wrong. I won't live to see humans on Mars. I thought I would.

ZARRELLA: But there's a chance, a long shot, that Cernan will at least see humans fly by the red planet. Millionaire Dennis Tito is leading a privately funded venture to Mars called Mission for America. The jaw- dropping, seemingly outrageous undertaking would lift off in 2018, just five years from now, when Mars will be in spitting distance of earth, about as close as it ever gets, roughly 36 million miles.

Tito is no stranger to space flight. He was a NASA engineer. And in 2001, became the first space tourist flying on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station.

DENNIS TITO, SPACE TOURIST (voice-over): It goes well beyond anything that I would have ever dreamed.

ZARRELLA: Plans for the Mars mission will be fully unveiled next week in Washington.

ZARRELLA (on camera): While Tito hasn't said it's a human mission, that seems pretty clear. Some of the principal players involved are experts in space medicine and life support. The mission would be what's called a, quote, fast free return and last 501 days.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): That's nothing like what NASA wants to eventually do, have humans land and work on Mars before returning. Sources close to the Mars mission tell CNN this is just a, quote, "really very simple fly around Mars." Talk about an understatement.

What we don't know is who's going and how many, how much it will cost or how they'll get there. What rocket and spacecraft. Sources tell us, quote, "it's an open field with a wide range of solutions." There are many millionaires and billionaires out there talking about mining asteroids, space hotels and moon bases. But all that's way down the road. Pulling off a Mars mission in five years, well, that's shooting for the moon.

John Zarrella, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Would you go?

MALVEAUX: We're going to stay put.

HOLMES: Yes, you're not going to go either.

MALVEAUX: You and I, I think, are both going to stay put.

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: That's OK.

HOLMES: Yes, a bit busy that day.

MALVEAUX: All right. The movie industry's biggest night, as you know. We've got a preview of the Academy Awards, up next.

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MALVEAUX: All right, two days until Hollywood's biggest night, of course.

HOLMES: Yes, nine films. As I was saying during the break, I always thought there used to be four films for Best Oscar. Now there's nine for them. They're vying for it.

MALVEAUX: They're choosing the best one --

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Of course the Best Picture Oscar. This is the 85th Academy Awards. A.J. Hammer looking at the role that history might play both for real and inactive (ph) pics, picking the winner this time around.

HOLMES: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

A.J. HAMMER, HLN HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" (voice-over): The Oscars, always about stars and glamour. But experts like deadline.com's Pete Hammond say, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences pays close attention to history.

PETE HAMMOND, WRITER, DEADLINE.COM: With historical movies, you get the big sets, you get the costumes, you get the so-called truth factor. And that's always appealing to the Academy.

HAMMER: Best Picture nominees and Oscar favorites "Lincoln," "Argo," "Les Miserables," "Zero Dark Thirty," and even "Django Unchained," all tell stories rooted in the past. And Hammond says this year's Oscar nominees are being influenced not just by history class, but politics is also playing a part.

HAMMOND: Now, the Oscars have always been accused of being political, but this year it's literally political. And it's with D.C. really getting involved in Hollywood's business here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you really believe this story, Osama bin Laden?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

HAMMOND: "Zero Dark Thirty" started it all with, you know, John McCain and Dianne Feinstein and the acting head of the CIA at that time basically attacking the movie for playing with the facts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

HAMMOND: "Lincoln" has really been using Washington, D.C. They had a special screening for Barack Obama at the White House. They came back and they had a big screening for the U.S. Senate. That was sort of unprecedented.

HAMMER: And Hammond says his pick for Best Picture is going to benefit from its historical setting and its political momentum among Oscar voters.

HAMMOND: You have to go with "Argo." I mean, I can't think of a movie that's won the Golden Globe, the Critic's Choice, the PGA, the DGA, SAG, you know, and BAFTA and gone on to lose at the Oscars for Best Picture.

HAMMER: But with "Argo's" Ben Affleck not being nominated for Best Director, that category is wide open.

HAMMOND: You know, it's a tossup I think really between Steven Spielberg for "Lincoln," --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're stepped out upon the world stage now.

HAMMOND: But I can really see it going to Ang Lee for "Life of Pi."

HAMMER: The consensus is, the Best Actress category comes down to "Silver Linings Playbook's" Jennifer Lawrence and "Zero Dark Thirty's" Jessica Chastain. But if they split the vote, there could be a surprise in this category from the star of the French film "Amour."

HAMMOND: You could see a real surprise. Emmanuelle Riva could sneak in for a win.

HAMMER: Although the Best Actor category seem like a lock.

HAMMOND: I mean Daniel Day-Lewis, across the board, has been winning everything. Plus he's playing Abraham Lincoln. You know, every time a voter reaches into their wallet, they pull out a reminder of him with a $5 bill.

HAMMER: So we will see who gets to become part of Oscar's history on Sunday night.

A.J. Hammer, CNN, Hollywood.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: So you and I both saw "Argo."

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Really liked it. I really liked that one. I thought that was a great one.

HOLMES: I thought it was great. Yes.

MALVEAUX: But -- and you've seen two out of the nine.

HOLMES: "Zero Dark Thirty" I saw as well, which was fascinating, because having spent time in Afghanistan and seeing a lot of the -- what took place there, as well. Again, it's no documentary. Don't go see "Zero Dark Thirty" and think that's how it all happened, but little (ph) bits in that (ph).

MALVEAUX: Yes, but it was a good -- good film?

HOLMES: Yes, really enjoyed it. I actually thought it was good.

MALVEAUX: So we have a lot of movies we'll be watching this --

HOLMES: I know. I could --

MALVEAUX: So, right before Sunday, I've got to see eight others.

HOLMES: And I've got to see seven. Yes, good luck with that.

MALVEAUX: Michael, want to go to the movies?

HOLMES: Sure. Yes, OK. We'll just keep on going. See one after the other. Daniel Day-Lewis, though, fantastic actor.

MALVEAUX: All right. We'll be watching on Sunday.

HOLMES: Oh, yes.

MALVEAUX: Almost one in four teens and teens is now obese. That's according to the CDC. A new after school program is aiming to fight childhood obesity by getting kids to essentially move, to get some exercise.

HOLMES: Yes, a bit of a depressing statistic, isn't it?

MALVEAUX: Yes.

HOLMES: One in four. Here's Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fast feet, fast feet, fast feet.

COHEN: Isn't your typical classroom.

AMY HEAD, CREATOR, "CARDIO KOOL KIDS": We are very mobile. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And with your heals.

COHEN: But in this after school program, you'll find students anxious to put in overtime.

HEAD: And we do fitness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then we come up --

COHEN: To learn how to bob and weave.

HEAD: We do dance.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me hear your exhale.

COHEN: Jab, even plank. Cardio Kool Kids creator Amy Head says the instructors go into schools, churches and rec centers, wherever the kids are.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good.

COHEN: The group meets weekly over several months.

HEAD: We bring the program to the children. It encompasses really the local child. We talk about nutrition and lots of topics around health and wellness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What I should and shouldn't eat.

COHEN: Ava is learning, and so is Aditia (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eat better foods, like protein.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hamburger patty. Protein or not? What do you think?

COHEN: School officials say this after school program simply adds to what the students are learning in school.

FAITH HARMEYER, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ASST. PRINCIPAL: It is fun, but it's also becoming part of a healthy lifestyle that we try to promote here. That they know it's a good thing to be doing. And it just falls in line with the other things that we promote throughout the school day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's awesome.

COHEN: Learning, plus fun with friends. An equation worthy of an A.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right. You remember Watergate. It all started with Watergate. Then we had New Orleans Saints Bountygate. And then, most recently, Marco Rubio's Thirstgate. Did we really call it Thirstgate?

MALVEAUX: Who comes up with this stuff? I don't know.

HOLMES: That was Plastic Watergate.

MALVEAUX: Now supposedly Pastagate? Quebec, this is where French is the official language. There's an Italian restaurant. It is under fire now for having too many Italian words on the menu.

HOLMES: Quebec's Office of French Language wanted French translations for words like, yes, pasta and calamari. Thousands of people took to Twitter in protest.

MALVEAUX: So now officials, they're backing down, saying, OK, they might have been a little overzealous in all of this.

HOLMES: Yes. Pardon moi, they're saying.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

HOLMES: Yes.

MALVEAUX: Well, pardon moi.

HOLMES: Yes. All right, bonsoir or --

MALVEAUX: Yes, bonsoir to you as well.

HOLMES: Or a tout a l'heure, or whatever we say.

Thanks for watching NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. That will do it for me. Have a great weekend, Suz.

MALVEAUX: Yes, you too. I'll see you on Monday.

HOLMES: Catch you at the pub.

MALVEAUX: You got it.