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NEWS STREAM

Couple Arrested In Greece For Abducting Girl; 62 Wildfires Still Rage In Australia; Laser Pointers A Growing Problem In Aviation; 3D Printers Using Molten Metal?; Kenneth Bae's Mother Leaves Son In North Korea With Aching Heart; Chinese Government Restricting Foreign Licensing On TV

Aired October 21, 2013 - 08:00   ET

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

PAULINE CHIOU, HOST: I'm Pauline Chiou in Hong Kong. Welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.

New fears of a potential megafire as flames continue to spread in southeastern Australia. The mother of an American held prisoner in North Korea speaks exclusively to CNN.

And a dangerous trend that officials say is on the rise, shining lasers into the eyes of airline pilots.

62 fires are still burning in southeastern Australia. Authorities say 14 of them are out of control. And worse could be in store for New South Wales if the weather does not change.

Officials fear that strong winds could cause three of the fires to merge into one massive blaze. A huge area of bush land near Sydney has already been scorched and hundreds of homes have already been destroyed.

The fires have spread across the Blue Mountains national park and beyond. They have come within 80 kilometers of Sydney.

These are just some of the locations affected. And in a minute, we'll go live to our Robyn Curnow who is right in the middle of it all.

In Katoomba, in all more than 116,000 hectares of land have been burned, that's larger than the size of New York City. More than 1,000 firefighters are trying to put out these flames.

Well, two boys have been arrested in connection with two fires just north of Sydney last week. The causes of the other fires is still under investigation. Meanwhile, a state of emergency remains in place across New South Wales.

Robyn Curnow joins us live now from Katoomba.

Robyn, what can you tell us about the fires that the boys are being connected to?

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. Well, those are just two of more than 60 fires in this region that are aging. Heard on the radio, authorities pleading with parents to keep an eye on their children saying, you know, they mustn't be reckless or stupid, basically being quite frank with parents that they really have to keep an eye on children who might want to start some of these fires.

So there is a real concern that, you know, this is just ordinary people creating some of these fires. That said, many of the fires have been caused by heavy winds pushing over powerlines, for example. There's also an investigation into whether these fires, at least some of them, were caused by a military accident, military exercise taking place.

So a variety of factors all contributing to these massive blazes that we're seeing in this region.

CHIOU: So far, more than 200 homes have been destroyed. Are there mandatory evacuations? And are people actually listening?

CURNOW: You know, ever since the 2009 Victoria fires in -- you know, and more than -- about 200 people died in those, 2,000 homes were lost in those fires. And I think after that, the Australian authorities really felt that they needed to have some sort of power to force people to be evacuated, because in those fires many people decided to stay in their homes, try and protect their homes. And that's why there was such a loss of life.

This time we haven't had any deaths so far, although there is a mandatory evacuation powers for the police. It appears they haven't really used them. People are deciding to leave, or if they are staying to protect their homes, you know, it's with the support of local authorities.

So I think based on the fires of a few years ago and these ones now, I think a lot of lessons have been learned by the Australian authorities and by the Australian people, because remember many of these firefighters who are working here overnight -- we're in the bush fire control center. You can see it's empty because all the firefighters are out there battling those blazes. And those people are all volunteers, ordinary people, young and old, men and women, who are essentially basically taking up spades and buckets and doing it themselves.

So, you know, it's that kind of community involvement I think that is really making this crisis, less dangerous and, you know, that's why we're not seeing the kind of fatalities that we saw in 2009 in Victoria.

CHIOU; It certainly is a crisis. And we know that you're in Katoomba which is about 100 kilometers west of Sydney.

You mentioned the winds and the direction. Is there a concern that the fires could spread in the direction of Sydney and the suburbs?

CURNOW: Absolutely. And I think that is the concern. And you can probably see. I mean, there's not a lot of wind around me at the moment. Of course, it's late at night so the temperatures have dropped. But I think in the next 36 to 48 hours that is where the concern is, because forecasters say that by Wednesday there are going to be very, very heavy, gusty winds, perhaps even going up to 100 kilometers an hour. Also the temperatures are expected to rise.

And don't forget, there's still a lot of dry brittle bush that is literally fueling these fires. So I think it's less about what's happening now and more concern about what's going to happen in the next two or three days, particularly when conditions deteriorate.

So what happens in terms of the spread? Where do these fires go? Do they link up all these separate fires, particularly those three main fires that are out of control and still active. Do they link up to create this sort of megafire and will it touch on the outskirts of Sydney? We just don't know, because it's depending on those weather conditions in the next few days.

So the fact that the volunteers in places like this are out there now, they're trying to basically get ahead of these fires by sort of doing controlled fires along the way. We've just been out into the region. We saw a number of fires on the edge of it. Many of the air embers are down. They're not furiously burning and that's because it's calm now. But I think at any moment the wind could pick up and I think that's the concern then that will gust through and these fires will essentially get worse.

CHIOU: So everyone is probably got their eye on the forecasts.

Robyn Curnow, thank you very much there. Robyn Curnow live in Katoomba.

And let's get more on the forecast. We know that these fires have actually spread a cloak of smog over Sydney recently. Mari Ramos is live at the World Weather Center.

So Mari, what can we expect in terms of the weather and also the wind direction?

MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You know what, the wind direction is critical. And that is one of the biggest concerns. You talked about the smoke. It does spread it over a large area across southeastern Australia. And it really does depend on which way the wind is blowing. That is a huge hazard for people even that are away from the fire, because it could travel for such a far amount of distance. And like I said, depending on the wind.

So this is Friday. Friday, we have winds out of the east. You can see the hotspots right over here, a little bit of coast. There's clouds. There's New Castle. There's Sydney down here to the bottom. So this is the view we're going to stay with.

Friday, you have easterly winds. Then, we move up one day. Let's go ahead and look. We look at Saturday. Saturday we had northerly winds. There's Sydney again. You see all these fires so close here across New South Wales.

Sunday, we had westerly winds. And we can tell this by the way the plume of smoke continues to flow. That day was a terrible, terrible air quality day on Sunday for you here in Sydney because of that plume of smoke moving right over you.

And then, we head to today. And I have that one right over here on Google Earth. And you can see that the plume is not as intense, that's because the winds were generally lighter, so the smoke just kind of sat around in this general area.

It looks like it had more of a westerly or a northwesterly component over the last 24 hours. So you can clearly see from these satellite images how different it is every single day. And these wind changes are critical.

I want to show you some video -- this is new and very dramatic footage taken by firefighters in the Blue Mountains. Go ahead and look at this, because here -- earlier this week, like I said this is in Thursday, the Mount Victoria Rural Fire Brigade took these images. And you can see how the embers are flying everywhere. Look at how the wind is plowing. Look at the trees. The wind gusts were extremely high.

When you have a situation like this, it is a true emergency, because those embers, like Robyn was mentioning, can really fly several kilometers, up to 30 kilometers according to some experts that spoke with CNN last week. And that makes it critical. It endangers the firefighters' lives. And it makes the job of stopping those flames even more difficult.

And one the things that Robyn mentioned is that they are starting, those perimeter fires in order to create some burn areas so the fire stops from spreading, if we have a situation where the wind begins to pick up very, very quickly again, even those burn areas that they're trying to do those perimeter fires could actually become extremely serious.

But here's the new change. We have a front that's coming through here. And you can se the cloud cover even along this Sydney area, just to the south near Canberra, there is a severe thunderstorm warning, Pauline. That means strong winds, that means lightning. That does mean rain, but unfortunately not enough rain, I think, to really help things out here. You can see it right over there.

When you have these strong -- have these strong thunderstorms move through, they create lightning, not enough rain. That could spark new fires. So that is a big concern across this entire region.

I want to very quickly show you. We have that high fire danger here. We have a front that comes through, scattered thunderstorms expected, but not enough. And then the winds, again, very, very strong. Look at this, by Tuesday local time we're going to see the winds start to pick up in the interior portions of New South Wales, then in areas farther to the south 10 hours later. By Wednesday, look, all of this area where those fires are burning, wind gusts like 50 to 60 maybe even 70 kilometers per hour are not out of the question. We're talking local time here. Back to you.

CHIOU: OK. Gosh, lightning and strong winds, that's going to make for a tough combination for the firefighters there in the next couple of days.

All right, Mari, thank you very much for the update.

And you're watching News Stream, coming up this hour we will hear from the mother of imprisoned American Kenneth Bae. She tells our Paula Hancocks about her emotional reunion with her son in North Korea.

This mystery girl has caught the eye of authorities in Greece. Police say she was actually abducted.

And low wages and safety shortcuts, the disturbing claims made by workers at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHIOU: You're watching News Stream. And you're looking at a visual version of all the stories we've got in the show today.

We started with the wildfires burning their way across the Australian state of New South Wales. Later in the show, we'll look at a disturbing new trend, lasers being shined right into the cockpits of passenger plains.

But first to an update on Kenneth Bae, the American prisoner in North Korea. Bae's mother is speaking out about her recent visit to North Korea. Myunghee Bae says leaving her son behind made her heart ache.

Bae was sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp. The North Korea government accuses him of committing, quote, "hostile acts."

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Paula Hancocks, Myung Hee-bae (ph) says she fears for his health.

And Paula joins me now live from Seoul with more on this interview.

Paula, how much time was she able to spend with her son? And what was he able to tell her?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORREPSONDENT: Well, Pauline, she spent five days in all in Pyongyang in North Korea. And she said that she was able to see her son three times in the hospital where he was being held and treated for a number of different illnesses. So in all she had about six hours with her son, saying that there wasn't a single pause in the conversation during that time.

She told me that she was clearly delighted to see him and it was a very emotional reunion for the two, but she said it also hit home for her that he was, in fact, a prisoner in one of the most isolated nations in the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: An embrace filled with emotion as a mother hugs the son she fears she could lose.

Kenneth Bae has been held prisoner in North Korea for 11 months. His mother Myunghee speaks exclusively to CNN about her recent visit.

MYUNGHEE BAE, MOTHER OF KENNETH BAE: My heart was ache when I saw him with a hospital garment in a confined -- in a small pace.

HANCOCKS: Myunghee Bae says his health has improved a little since this interview was filmed in August. Bae was hospitalized, suffering from a catalog of illness, including diabetes, heart problems and back pain.

BAE: I really cried a lot after I saw this picture. I really couldn't have believed that prisoner is my son.

HANCOCKS: Bae, an American citizen, was arrested in November of last year. He was sentenced in May to 15 years hard labor for what North Korea called hostile acts and plotting to overthrow the government.

His mother says he didn't discuss the reasons for his arrest when she met him, but he does have a love for North Korea and its people.

BAE: I think that his face was so strong. He wanted to convey some -- his way, so that is the very conflict of the -- their way. That's last year.

HANCOCKS: Bae was allowed to visit her son in hospital three times while in North Korea, which she is very grateful for, but was unable to meet with any officials to plead his case.

She begs the regime for mercy. And is terrified Bae will be sent back to the labor camp.

BAE: That's my worst fear, because I don't think his body can endure eight hours labor a day, six days a week.

HANCOCKS: Vigils have been held back home in Seattle for Bae. His mother tells me letters from supporters from around the world help to keep him mentally strong. Bae told his mother he is being treated fairly and is being held in a special labor camp where he is the only prisoner surrounded by guards and doctors.

Myunghee Bae tells me of the moment she had to say good-bye.

BAE: I mean, how long will it take to see him again? How long should I wait for him to return? It's very hard to leave him over there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: Bae says she's calling once again on all sides to show mercy, to grant amnesty and for the U.S. government to push harder to try and secure her son's release -- Pauline.

CHIOU: It is so heartbreaking to hear her side of the story.

Now, Paula, why did the North Korean government let her into the country in the first place?

HANCOCKS: Well, Bae had actually asked to go to North Korea to visit her son over a number of months. And she said that once she saw the video back in July, the footage of Kenneth Bae in prison looking much -- showing that he had lost a tremendous amount of weight. And she said that she barely recognize him, because he looked so ill as well.

And also after he went to hospital, she pushed the State Department in the United States, she pushed every way that she could to try and secure that invitation. And they did invite her in.

She's says she's very grateful to the DPRK, the North Koreans, for inviting her in. Unfortunately, she says, she didn't have a chance to meet any officials or any of the leadership to try and plead her case personally -- Pauline.

CHIOU: OK. A very powerful story. Thank you for bringing it to us. Paula Hancocks there live from Seoul.

Well, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is warning against what he calls governing by crisis. In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Lew said the recent government shutdown and the debt ceiling crisis did harm the nation's economy. He also takes aim at the across the board spending cuts, the sequester, that took effect in 2011 saying they are hurting America's recovery.

Somewhat overshadowed by the budget battle in the U.S. was the less than stellar rollout of the new health care insurance website. Later on today, U.S. President Barack Obama steps into the spotlight to address the glitches with the system. CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta joins us now live from Washington.

Jim, these health insurance exchanges are at the heart of Obamacare. Now that the shutdown is over, what is the latest on this battlefront?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORREPSONDENT: Well, it means a lot more attention is going to be paid to Obamacare and all of these glitches on the website and the rollout in the last several weeks. The president is going to be talking about that later on this morning here at the White House. But CNN has a new poll with its polling partner ORC that finds a majority of Americans in the United States, and not a surprise here after that bruising battle over the budget up on Capitol Hill, finds a majority of Americans are not happy with Republican control of the House of Representatives, but the GOP may have caught a big political break in that the focus is now shifting back to Obamacare.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): The shutdown ended days ago, but the hangover is still lingering, and it's bad news for Republicans. A new CNN/ORC poll finds just 38 percent of Americans believe GOP control of the House of Representatives is good for the country. More than half say it's a bad them. But it gets worse for House Speaker John Boehner.

A sizable majority of Americans say he should be replaced. Only 30 percent say he should stay. The numbers are slightly better for President Obama; 44 percent have confidence in the president versus 31 percent in Republicans in Congress. GOP leaders say it is blow back.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: A number of us were saying back in July that this strategy could not and would not work and, of course, it didn't. So there will not be another government shutdown. You can count on that.

ACOSTA: But the end of the budget brinkmanship has shifted the spotlight right where Republicans want it, on Obamacare. Later today, aides say the president will acknowledge the website's now infamous glitches and laying out solutions for fixing them. The pressure is on while the program has seen nearly a half million applications and 19 million visitors to healthcare.gov, the Obama administration admits the web site experience has been frustrating for many Americans.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: It's been a fiasco. Send Air Force One out to Silicon Valley, load it up with smart people, bring them back to Washington, and fix this problem. It's ridiculous. Everybody knows that.

ACOSTA: Conservatives are calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, saying she is resisting requests to testify on Capitol Hill even though she has time to go on "The Daily Show."

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Absolutely she should resign. Why? Because the program she has implemented, Obamacare, is a disaster.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Ridiculous, but nonetheless, I do think what has happened is unacceptable, has to be fixed, and that is what will happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Now, over the weekend the Obama administration said it was bringing it what it called the best and the brightest to fix these glitches in the Obamacare website, but the White House argues that this program is much more than a website, saying it offers protections that did not exist before this healthcare program became law. Expect the president to repeat that in a Rose Garden ceremony here at the White House later this morning -- Pauline.

CHIOU: All right, Jim, thank you very much. Jim Acosta there in Washington.

And coming up next on News Stream...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vendors that are putting these products to market without doing a lot of thorough research into security...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHIOU: Is our webcam watching you? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHIOU: We have some sports news just coming in. The matches are set in the final round of European qualifying for the World Cup. The winners of these matches will go on to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The highlight clash sees Christiano Ronaldo's Portugal play Sweden, while France will face Ukraine. The other matches see Greece playing Romania and underdogs Iceland will take on Croatia. Iceland have never before qualified for the World Cup.

The matches will take place on November 15 and the 19th.

Well, with cameras built into almost every device these days, there are fears that people could use those cameras to spy on you. So how do you stop that?

CNN Money's Laurie Segall has some tips.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN MONEY CORRESPONDENT: In this living room, a stuffed animal on the couch.

KYLE LOVETT, SECURITY RESEARCHER: We're looking, actually, at a live shot of a friend's house, it's not an individual we don't know. But it is a live shot of somebody's home. And there are many others out there.

SEGALL: How did we get this view? The camera you use to chat online hacked, giving outsiders a window into your home.

How rampant is this?

LOVETT: I would say many, if not more than half of the IP cameras are at least have an issue where it doesn't prompt the user to change the default username and password, or it has a vulnerability where you can bypass security and get right into the camera.

SEGALL: It's not just your webcam, any camera connected to the Internet could be vulnerable.

Here, we're looking at a traffic camera.

LOVETT: That will automatically...

SEGALL: Kyle is a security researcher. His goal is to call attention to these problems.

LOVETT: Many times you can actually manipulate the camera themselves. If you can actually get into the code where you can turn the camera, you can turn the LEDs on, you can turn the LEDs off.

SEGALL: Baby monitors, children's laptops, they've all been compromised.

LOVETT: You're looking at vendors that are putting these products to market without doing a lot of thorough research into security.

SEGALL: Sometimes the issue is the camera itself, other times it's the router connected to the camera. The flaws Kyle uses to get access have yet to be fixed by the manufacturers.

JAMES YOUNGER, CYBER SECURITY INSTRUCTOR, TRAINACE: Many of these newer attacks now can be done from anywhere around the world.

SEGALL: I certainly don't want someone turning on my webcam at home. What can I do to protect myself?

YOUNGER: First and foremost, change your defaults, change your default username, change your default password.

SEGALL: If you want to be careful, you can always turn off remote access to your camera.

YOUNGER: By default. We can set them up so that we can remote into these cameras from other locations. So let's say that I'm at work and I want to see what's going on at home. Now that's one of the main benefits of having these cameras, but that's also one of the main vulnerabilities, because usually I can remote in from my, let's say work back into my home, then potentially anyone can remote in from anywhere in the world back into my home.

SEGALL: Laurie Segall, CNN Money, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: Well, just ahead, there's a new twist in the mystery surrounding a young girl. She was found living with a Roma couple now accused of abducting her. Find how who they say gave the girl to them coming up next.

And it may be the most dangerous job in the world. Some workers are speaking out about the conditions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHIOU: I'm Pauline Chiou in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.

62 fires are still burning in southeastern Australia. Authorities say 14 of them are now out of control. And the emergency could get even worse. If the weather forecast is right, firefighting conditions will deteriorate over the next 48 hours. The worry is that three large blazes will merge to become one massive fire.

A mother has described the moment she said good-bye to her son who is serving a 15 year sentence in a North Korean labor camp. American Kenneth Bae was arrested in North Korea last November. He's accused by authorities of trying to break down the -- bring down the government. Myunghee Bae says it made her heart ache to leave her son after visiting him for five days.

France's foreign minister has summoned the U.S. ambassador to Paris for a meeting. Laurent Fabius told French television he had called for the meeting after French newspaper Le Monde reported that the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted tens of millions of phone calls in France over a 30 day period.

In Greece, a Roma couple has been charged with abducting a young girl. They say they adopted her from her biological mother, but police are suspicious of the records provided to them.

The case is generating a lot of public interest, but it is also feeding into the widespread discrimination that Roma people face in Greece and all across Europe.

The couple appeared in court today. And CNN's Erin McLaughlin is covering the story live from CNN London.

Erin, exactly what is the couple saying?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORREPSONDENT: Hi, Pauline.

Well, they're currently being deposed in court, a court hearing being held in central Athens today. The 39-year-old man and a 40-year- old woman are facing charges of abduction of a minor as well as falsifying identification documents.

Meanwhile, thousands of calls are pouring in to a hotline that was established to try and identify this girl's real parents. Questions remain as to who this girl is and where she is from.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): She's known only as Maria, the little girl at the center of an international mystery. Just who are her parents and why was she found living in a gypsy campsite in Greece? Investigators were carrying out a routine inspection of a Roma encampment near the town of Larissa when they noticed Maria. Her blond hair and blue eyes were striking. She looked nothing like the 39-year- old man and the 40-year-old woman claiming to be her parents. DNA tests later confirmed the investigator's suspicions.

PANAGIOTIS PARDOLIS, "SMILE OF THE CHILD" SPOKESMAN: There was bad living conditions, poor hygiene. So the girl was found under -- in a state of neglect, both physically and psychologically. MCLAUGHLIN: The man and woman were arrested on suspicion of abducting a minor, and the campsite is now under investigation. The couple's lawyer denies the charges.

KOSTAS KATSAVOS, LAWYER FOR ACCUSED COUPLE: Our clients' claim is that we never abduct this child, we just adopted. With -- in a way non- legal. That's where we can confess.

MCLAUGHLIN: Police launched a public appeal, and have asked Interpol to help locate her real parents. When Maria's story broke, it reminded many of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal six years ago. No trace of her has ever been found.

STEVE MOORE, RETIRED FBI SPECIAL AGENT: I'd hope that something like this would give the McCanns enough hope and encouragement that they renew their strength for the fight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCLAUGHLIN: Now the lawyer for this couple says that a Bulgarian woman actually gave them Maria because she couldn't care for her. But police say that this couple has changed its story many times and they're casting a critical eye on their other children as well. The couple claims to have 14 children, six of those children their birth dates fall within the same 10 month range, Pauline.

CHIOU: 14 children.

OK, where is the girl Maria right now? And who is taking care of her?

MCLAUGHLIN: She's currently being taken care of by a local charity in Greece called the Smile of the Child. They're the ones really spearheading this effort to try and find her real parents. They've established that hotline that I mentioned, has over 8,000 phone calls so far. People from around the world calling in for tips to try and identify this girl, Pauline.

CHIOU: And Erin, there are charges of discrimination from the Roma community. From what you've been gathering, are these charges -- could they legitimate.

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, it certainly historically the Romas have been experienced discrimination throughout Europe, but there are serious questions about this little girl. The fact of the matter is the DNA tests show that these -- this couple who were claiming to be her parents are, in fact, not her parents. So I think authorities really right now concentrating on trying to identify where her parents are and asking them to come forward, Pauline.

CHIOU: OK. It sounds like a very complicated story. Erin, thank you very much. Erin McLaughlin there live from CNN London.

And in another ordeal that stirred up long simmering tensions about Roma people in Europe, a 15-year-old Roma girl, who was deported to Kosovo with her family earlier this month, has been told she can return to France and continue her schooling there, but she has to return alone.

French President Francois Hollande made this offer after the issue generated strong public interest and widespread student protests in the country. But the girl rejected the offer saying she would not return without her family.

There are new concerns about Japan's disabled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The utility that operates the plant says highly radioactive water overflowed its barriers following heavy rains on Sunday and may have gone into the ocean.

This comes as a team from the UN's nuclear watchdog agency wrapped up its review of cleanup efforts in the wake of 2011's disastrous earthquake and tsunami. It said Japan has done, quote, "an enormous amount to reduce people's radiation exposure in affected areas."

Well, some of the workers at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are speaking out now. And they say they've been dealing with potentially unsafe working conditions and extremely low wages for the dangerous work that they're doing.

Paula Hancocks has more details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANCOCKS: They are the workers trying to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster in a quarter of a century, a vital and dangerous job. This worker at the Fukushima nuclear power plant tells CNN he is not treated well. He believes that if he complains he will be fired.

Hiding his identity as workers are forbidden to talk to the media, he tells me he works 300 meters from the tank where a toxic water leak was discovered in August.

"We only know the facts when we get home," he claims. "Watching TV news and reading the newspapers the next day. There's no explanation about what is happening and how dangerous it might be."

Tepco says this leak was not dangerous to workers if they were wearing protective gear, telling CNN they have a system in place to ensure that workers know the general radiation levels in their areas, but they don't pass on all details of incidents to avoid confusion.

"This is a very complicated issue," says Tepco's spokesman. "Once this kind of trouble occurs, we assess what emergency measures are necessary. And if the accident does not affect workers directly, we don't explain the issue."

As a subcontractor and not a direct Tepco employee, this man is paid $110 a day, $50 lower than an online advert we saw for a similar job with another subcontractor at the same plant. Paid by his company and not directly by Tepco, he worries the danger money workers are promised for possible radiation exposure is being skimmed off by some companies.

Reports of middlemen getting rich from this disaster prompted Tepco to issue questionnaires to subcontractors and their workers last year. Tepco says 30 percent of those who responded said they received no danger pay for working at the plant.

Of a dozen companies contacted by CNN, two dismissed the claims. Only one said it was aware of the issue and was working to ensure fair payment. Tepco says it's doing the same.

This man worked as a subcontractor at the plant immediately after the 2011 disaster. He says he doesn't believe Tepco and its contractors are interested in fairness for workers.

"In order to cut costs," he says. "Tepco brought in a bidding system. To win the project, contractors are bidding solo."

"It's simple," he tells me. "Excessive cost cutting is making workers suffer in terms of payment and health."

Tepco maintains the bidding system is necessary and is making sure bids are adequate without excessive cost cutting.

Hailed as heroes following the nuclear meltdown, these two workers say there is now a feeling amongst some of being under appreciated and under paid.

Paula Hancocks, CNN, Fukushima, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: We turn to the U.S. now where two escaped convicted killers are back behind bars in Florida. Now, authorities want to know how they got out prison in the first place and whether they had help from the inside.

Charles Walker and Joseph Jenkins were recaptured on Saturday several weeks after they were mistakenly released from prison on what officials say were forged documents. As Nick Valencia reports, law enforcement officials now face tough questions about what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My God, those are U.S. Marshals.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the two convicted killers, this cell phone video shows the moment their man hunt ended, just 80 miles from where their escape began. Handcuffed and shackled, Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker said little during their first court appearance after being arrested.

MARTY WEST, U.S. MARSHALL'S FUGITIVE TASK FORCE: We had information that they were here at the Coconut Grove Motor Inn. VALENCIA: Officials tell CNN the two were waiting for a ride from Atlanta in this Panama City beach motel when they were busted. Unarmed, they were detained without incident. At a press conference on Sunday, Florida officials addressed the bureaucratic blunder. The two convicts serving life sentences were accidentally released after showing forged paperwork. Apparently, this had happened twice before. Only the inmates were caught before they got out.

MICHAEL CREWS, CORRECTIONS SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: It is embarrassing. But my concentration at this point is I think everyone else here is making sure that we come up with a process and a procedure that prohibits this from happening in the future.

VALENCIA: Law enforcement has launched an investigation to figure out how Jenkins and Walker duped the system and obtained the fake documents.

JERRY DAILEY, ENFORCEMENT COMMISSIONER, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF LAW: There is speculation, an underlying speculation that there was a source where for certain a sum of money that these documents could be constructed for $8,000. Whether that is true or not will be determined.

VALENCIA: CNN legal analyst, Mark O'Mara says they must have had help.

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It has to be somebody on the inside. It has to be, somebody in the courthouse, maybe even somebody in the state attorney's position, a secretary that can get that paperwork done.

VALENCIA: Standing at his father's grave, Robert Pugh chokes up. While his father's killer, Charles Walker, was on the run, he struggled reliving his family's nightmare.

ROECO PUGH III, VICTIM'S SON: He had no remorse when he killed our father in front of us the first time.

VALENCIA: Police are now promising to hold all who contributed accountable telling CNN that additional arrests are expected.

Nick Valencia, CNN, Panama City, Florida.

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CHIOU: You're watching News Stream. Up next, we'll tell you how laser lights are wrecking havoc with airplanes in New York. Stay with us.

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CHIOU: China is changing the channel when it comes to some foreign content on television. The media is tightly controlled by the government, and now new restrictions will limit entertainment imports even more. David McKenzie has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chinese will be seeing a lot more of this on their television with the government clamping down on what is called excessive entertainment, restricting the amount of foreign licensed shows on its satellite TV.

The main targets, say industry insiders, wildly popular reality shows like Dragon TV, Chinese Idols, models, of course, on FOX's American Idol and licensed from the British addition.

There's The Voice of China on Zhejiang TV, modeled on The Voice.

And, yes, China's Got Talent.

The shows have a huge following in China. And executives here, like in the rest of the world, license hits to minimize their risk and maximize their ad dollars.

But in 2014, stations like Dragon will only be allowed to license one foreign concept a year and won't be able to air it on primetime.

The government, which owns all Chinese media outlets, says it's a way to push morality building and more Chinese content.

Critics online say it's protectionist and shortsighted, with one netizen calling it cultural dictatorship.

Millions in China have already migrated away from the television to the Internet and mobile devices to get their content. One media professional told CNN that these restrictions are like the era of Mao (ph).

David McKenzie, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: Flying an aircraft comes with a lot of risks and one that's causing increasing concern is coming from people on the ground. According to the FBI, a growing number of pilots in the New York area are being targeted by laser pointers. Incidents are up 17 percent from last year.

Now the lasers can cause serious injuries, including temporary or permanent blindness to the pilot and/or the crew. CNN's aviation and government regulation correspondent Renee Marsh has more on this now from CNN Washington.

So, Renee, exactly how serious a problem is this becoming?

RENEE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll tell you the FBI extremely concerned. It's becoming more common than people may even realize. We're talking about a startling flash of light targeting cockpits and pilots. It's a dangerous distraction mid-air. And again federal investigators extremely concerned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): This video from the FAA shows the blinding glare of a laser aimed at an airplane's cockpit. It's a scenario that replayed itself thousands of times throughout the country. Listen as a plane is coming in for landing at New York's JFK airport last year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just got lasered up here. Two green flashes into the cockpit. It caught the first officer's eye.

MARSH: In New York City, the FBI says incidents targeting planes have jumped 17 percent.

RICHARD FRANKEL, FBI AGENT: We don't have an idea as to why the increase, but it has been a 17 increase over last year regarding these incidents. So, they are concerning to us.

STEVE WALLACE, AVIATION SAFETY CONSULTANT: Laser is not going to physically hurt the airplane, but the laser can blind the pilot at least contemporarily blind the pilot and also just the effect of this startling burst of light into the airplane cockpit.

MARSH: A dangerous distraction for pilots. According to the FAA, the number of laser incidents is 13 times higher now than previous years. Compare more than 350 incidents in 2006 to more than 3,400 incidents in 2012 and while these lasers have never caused a crash, the blinding light often appears during takeoff and touchdown.

WALLACE: The worst case scenario is that in the critical phase of flight, a pilot loses control an airplane, potentially, a tragic accident.

MARSH: The most recent incident happening last week, a commercial plane was coming in for landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport when a blinding green laser light illuminated the cockpit. Later that night, a private plane reported a laser two miles southwest of LaGuardia. No injuries reported in either case.

But earlier this year, several commercial pilots suffered significant injuries, including a burnt retina, according to the FBI, which is leading the investigation.

WALLACE: We need to train pilots better to how to cope with them. we need to train the public in the hazard that these things can represent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARCH: All right.

Well, experts say part of the reason we may be seeing an increase in these incidents is because these lasers are inexpensive and they're available online.

Now the FAA is exploring potential laser eye protection for pilots like special glasses, military pilots already wear laser eye protection. And right now, we should tell you there's no evidence of terrorism, but the FBI is investigating because pointing a laser at a plane is a federal crime -- Pauline.

CHIOU: And extremely dangerous as well.

Renee, thank you very much. Renee Marsh there live from CNN Washington.

And you are watching News Stream. Just ahead, an innovative new era for 3D printing with implications here on earth and beyond.

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CHIOU: You probably didn't notice, but one of the most dangerous asteroids on record whizzed past Earth last month, luckily closely avoiding us. Though it begs the question what would we do if an asteroid were on a collision course with our planet. Tom Foreman reports scientists are looking at novel ways to deal with that threat.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Amid all this popular talk about the idea that an asteroid hitting the earth, NASA has a serious proposal: Why not go into space to try to capture one so we can learn more about asteroids.

And this is how they propose to do that. A very powerful rocket would take off from earth and it would launch what's called an asteroid redirect vehicle, which is essentially a robotic space craft which would shoot off into space driven by the most powerful solar electric propulsion system we've ever seen. Now, it wouldn't actually go beyond the stars. But this does give a sense that it would go many, many hundreds of thousands of miles off into space, looking for a very small target. Because the asteroids they are after would only about this big, as big as two or three big pick-up trucks, although this would weigh as much as two freight train engines. And it would be rotating slowly. It's a challenge because they have to stop it before they transport it.

Let me scale it down to size so you have a better idea of what we're talking about. Because as the redirect vehicle comes toward it, it will deploy a giant technical space bag. And over a period of hours, gradually ease it over the rotating asteroid and squeeze down on it to stop that rotation. Then the whole shebang will take off, flying back toward the earth, more importantly, toward the moon where it would go into a rotation around the moon about 40,000 miles above the lunar surface. This way, scientists could travel out there, astronauts, to visit this asteroid and conduct experiments on it.

Why we do this? It would cost billions and billions of dollars at a time the country doesn't have much money. Well, the scientific community says because it will give us very important knowledge about new deep- space technologies, propulsion systems, solar energy, all sorts of things that we use all the time on earth. Secondly, it would give us an idea of what to do if we had an asteroid coming toward earth. We've handled one. We'd have some idea how to handle another. And just as important, we would find out what sort of minerals and things are contained inside these asteroids, whether or not that's something we could mine for purposes on earth or perhaps to be used in future exploration further into space.

The bottom line, they say, yes, it is expensive, but it's called exploration because you never know what you might find.

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CHIOU: Well, here on News Stream, we've been talking a lot about the rise of 3D printing. You can see it in action right here. Instead of using ink like regular printers, 3D printers take a digital image and then build upon layer upon layer of material to create complex solid objects. Car parts, prosthetic limbs, even human tissue have been manufactured in this way.

Well, 3D printers often use plastic, but now the European space agency wants to use the technology to make products out of molten metal. Neil Curry has more details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NEIL CURRY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: From the model of a car engine, to the more controversial plastic gun, 3D printers have revolutionized the way we make things.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Morning, ladies and gentleman.

CURRY: Now the European space agency has unveiled a plan to print parts out of metal.

DAVID JARVIS, AMAZE PROJECT, ESA: AMAZE is an exciting project. It's just started this year. It's going to be a five year project that's going to look at additive manufacturing of metal products. We're going to make the world's best quality metal components for a whole range of different sectors.

CURRY: The project is a joint venture between ESA and industry. Their aim is to produce metal components that are lighter and stronger as they'll be made out of one piece of metal without welding or bolting.

JOHN MEYER, EADS: The sectors of industry that I can see this being used in, today it's already being used actually in the medical sector, so there are implants being made for implanting hips, for example, made in titanium using these technologies.

The next adopters are likely to be space, defense and aerospace.

CURRY: The printers work in the same way as current versions using plastic that's laid down to build up the finished product. With these printers, molten metal is used instead.

It's hoped that the technology could be used to make cars and planes, even building parts in outerspace.

JARVIS: We're hoping to be able to eventually print simple parts that can be used for astronauts for future missions to the moon, or to Mars as well.

CURRY: But the ESA knows there are still several key challenges to overcome.

JARVIS: These liquid metals are prone to oxidation, so you need to make sure that your chamber has no oxygen in it whatsoever. Some of the metal powders that we buy from powder producers, they may contain inside them very small bubbles of gas, which is inherent to that process. And if you bring in those gas bubbles into your parts that could potential be a crack later on.

So there's a whole range of limitations, which we are very open and honest and transparent about.

CURRY: Until these are solved, we'll have to wait awhile longer before 3D printing enters the metal age.

Neil Curry, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHIOU: And finally, we leave you with one more 3D printed object. Anyone for a 3D printed pizza? Well, this NASA funded device made its debut last month. It is designed to provide astronauts freshly cooked food in space. The finished product looks like pizza, but no word yet on how it tastes. Maybe like pepperoni cardboard. Who knows.

Well, that is News Stream. World Business today is coming up next.

END