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NEWS STREAM
Still No Sign Of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370; Titanfall Review; Snowden Speaks To Tech Crowd At South by Southwest; Getting On The Train 10 Years After Madrid Bombings; San Francisco Not Ready For Google Class
Aired March 11, 2014 - 8:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong and welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.
Now Interpol says the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet probably wasn't terrorism. The question remains what happened.
NSA leaker Edward Snowden says he has no regrets over his decision to reveal classified information.
And it's the latest shooter from the man behind Call of Duty. We get a review of Titanfall.
We are learning more about two passengers who used stolen passports to board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Interpol held a news conference just a short time ago and identified the men as Iranian nationals. Now the agency adds that the plane's disappearance is likely not the result of any terrorist incident.
Now there is still no sign of the missing plane nor any idea of what went wrong when it vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur early on Saturday.
Now Malaysia's police inspector general said that they are considering four possibilities in the investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KHALID ABU BAKAR, MALAYSIAN INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE: We are looking into four areas: one is hijacking, two sabotage, three, psychological problem of the passengers and crew and four personal problem among...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: A large scale sea and air mission is currently underway to track down any sign of the plane and the 239 people on board. And the search area has been expanded as radar indicates that the plane might have turned back toward Kuala Lumpur.
Now Saima Mohsin is getting a firsthand look at this search operation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAIMA MOHSIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This C-130 plane carries out regular search and rescue missions. This is still a search and rescue operation. As far as the Malaysian government is concerned, we're now flying just 500 feet above sea level, very low, searching for (inaudible) plane, MH 370.
Now this is the first time the Malaysian (inaudible) defense and transportation (inaudible) defense force have come out to see, to join the operation. They're overviewing all the ships that are out here, more than 40 ships, from neighboring countries -- from Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the USA and Australia have joined the search (inaudible).
They have a vast area to cover, around 4,500 square nautical miles. There also are fisherman to help them in that search. And they say they will not give up until they find missing plane MH 370. They owe it to the loved ones of those on board.
Saima Mohsin, CNN, Malaysia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Now in a world where many people have a GPS phone in their pockets, how can a plane just go missing? Now it may surprise you to learn that aircraft are not continuously tracked by satellites. They are actually dependent on a host of different technologies all based on radio. Now for starters, there's radar, that's how much flights are tracked.
But radar's range is limited, especially over water. And while radar can detect an object, it can't tell you what that object is.
Now for that job, plane's carry transponders. They emit signals that carry a plane's identity, so when an air traffic controller sees a blip on the radar, they know which plane that is.
Now transponders, they can't be switched off, but we really have no idea what happened to it in this case.
Finally, there is one more way planes are tracked -- verbally. When planes are out of radar coverage, the most precise way to know a plane's location is for a pilot to say it outloud on radio.
Now there are proposals to use satellites to stream live data from planes mid-flight. But right now they are only proposals.
Brian Todd looks at why they haven't been adopted yet.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So many potential answers to this mystery lie in a small metal container that for the moment has disappeared with Malaysia Air Flight 370. They were once called black boxes. They are actually orange. They have the cockpit voice recorder, capturing what the pilots say and the flight data recorder with the plane's speed, direction, crucial mechanical data. They can withstand crashes, and function from the bottom of the ocean, but the clock is ticking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The pingers, the locators on those devices only last for 30 days.
TODD: Safety experts say with this incident, it's time to figure out how to stream that information live instead of waiting for the box to be recovered from the crash site.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can get a lot of information out very quickly, and this could be recorded information for the last ten minutes that is sent almost instantaneously if the aircraft gets in some kind of distress.
TODD: Experts say data would stream live from the aircraft to a satellite, then to the ground. If the plane goes into a rapid roll or sudden loss of altitude, it would automatically trigger the data stream. The technology exists. Why haven't airlines installed it?
PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB: It takes a certain amount of money to retrofit the fleets, and secondly, it costs money to stream through a satellite.
TODD: Plus, the airlines would have to build ground stations to take in the data. Expensive, considering most accidents like this are very rare.
GOELZ: We only have this kind of accident rarely. But when you have it, it is extraordinarily expensive, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent searching for Air France had 447.
TODD: Searchers took two years to find the data recorder for that Air France flight that went down in the Atlantic in 2009, killing 228 people.
Experts say there's another possibility as well: a deployable recorder, a box that would automatically eject from a plane when it's in distress and land separately on the ground or in the water. Those already exist in some military planes.
Brian Todd, CNN, at Reagan National Airport.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TODD: Now there's actually a way you can help find the plane. The satellite imaging firm Digital Globe has a crowdsourcing site where people can search through satellite photos taken of the area and they're asking people to tag anything that looks suspicious for further review. You can participate. Tomnod (N-O-D).com.
Now as reported at the very top of the hour, Interpol says that two passengers who used stolen passports to board flight 370 were Iranian nationals. Now CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is in London. He joins me now with more on that. And Nic, in the last two hours, what have we learned about these two stolen passport holders?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that the two men traveled from Iran to Kuala Lumpur arriving there on the 28th of February, but they traveled that leg from Iran to Kuala Lumpur on their Iranian passports. One of them is a young man believed to be about 19 years of age, the other one -- another young man, it's believed to be around about 29 years of age.
But what we have learned now from Interpol is that they believe that the nature of these two men, the investigations that they've been able to do so far, lead them to the conclusion that neither of these men was likely to be involved in terrorist activity. This is what they said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD NOBLE, INTERPOL SECRETARY GENERAL: The more information we get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident. And if you read what the head of police from Malaysia said recently about the 19-year-old whose photograph is here wanting to travel to Frankfurt, Germany in order to be with his mother. It's part of a human smuggling issue and not a part of a terrorist issue.
ROBERTSON: So this really does seem to sort of run to ground that avenue of information that's existed since the flight went missing, that these two passengers, traveling on stolen passports could have had some nefarious reason perhaps to bring the plane down. That really does not seem to be entirely discounted not only by Interpol, but also we're hearing from the Malaysian police as well.
So, it does, if you will, shut down one of the areas of investigation. Although, you know, as we've heard from the police, they're still looking at those other four major avenues as well, Kristie.
LU STOUT: As you say, it sort of shuts down the speculation that some sort of terror attack was involved. But this is a security issue still. I mean, Interpol has this huge database of stolen passports and yet these two passengers, they were able to board this plane with these stolen documents. How?
ROBERTSON: Well, this is a point that really it seems that the Interpol secretary general really wanted to make very clear. And he gave two examples of where stolen passports had been used in the past. A man traveling on a stolen Iraqi passport in 1993, the first -- for the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York. And more recently a woman known -- a British woman, indeed, known as the white widow accused of being connected to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups has been able to travel in Africa on her passport, but that has an Interpol notice on it.
So, what he's saying is that to rule out these issues in the future, to rule out whether or not a terrorist is boarding your plane or somebody else using a false passport, or stolen passport, then it needs to be cross referenced to the database. They have a database of 40 million records. They say there are a billion people who either get on flights or cross boarders every year. There are 800 million checks made on their database, but it's only some countries doing that.
And we heard from this CEO of Malaysia Airlines who talked to our Jim Clancy saying that -- or indicating that the reason that he hadn't integrated those passport checks with Interpol was a time issue, because it takes time to do.
Some nations do it. And Interpol was really stressing here that it's important for everyone to do it, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, a lot of questions about airport security and screening at that international airport.
Nic Robertson joining me live from London. Thank you very much indeed for that wrapup and the analysis.
You're watching News Stream. Still to come on the program, a former computer specialist at the National Security Agency calls on the tech community's brightest minds to keep governments in check. We will hear what Edward Snowden said at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Texas.
We'll also hear from Ukraine's ousted president now in Russia with just five days to go before Crimea votes on whether to join Russia.
And a decade after 191 people were killed in a terror attack in Spain, this young lady puts on a very brave face.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: Welcome back, you're watching News Stream. And you're looking at a visual version of all the stories we've got in the show today.
Now in a little while, we'll get a review of Titanfall. It is a new game from one of the men behind Call of Duty.
But first, the man who revealed details about U.S. surveillance programs says that the tech community has to do more to reign in intrusive government.
Now Edward Snowden spoke at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival via video link from Russia where he has temporary asylum. And he was taking questions when someone asked him about his decision to leak thousands of secret U.S. documents. The question, would you do it again?
His response, absolutely. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEADER: I took an oath to support and defend the constitution and I saw that the constitution was violated on a massive scale. The interpretation of the fourth amendment had been changed -- thank you. The interpretation of the constitution had been changed in secret from no unreasonable search and seizure, to, hey any seizure is fine, just don't search it. And that's something the public ought to know about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Interesting choice of background image there.
Now the event in Austin, Texas, it marked the first time the former National Security Agency contractor had assessed the tech community since last year's scandal. And he used the platform to call for a better tech response to government surveillance, including better encryption tools and more access to them. He said people need to be more aware of how they use the Internet and how governments can use it against them.
Now the ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, he made his second public appearance since being forced to leave Kiev. Speaking from a city in southwest Russia, Yanukovych called his country's interim government illegitimate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIKTOR YANUKOVYCH, FRM. PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I want to remind you that I am still not just the legitimate president, but also the head of the military. I have not stopped my responsibilities. I'm alive. I have not been left without my powers according to the constitution. Western country's say I've lost my legitimacy when I fled, but I have not fled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Now, according to Russian media Moscow lawmakers are getting ready to discuss legislation on Crimea joining the Russian Federation. That is supposed to happen March 21, five days after Crimea holds a referendum on whether it should quite Ukraine.
Now the French foreign minister says sanctions against Russia could come this week.
Now regardless of the referendum, power is already shifting on the ground. Pro-Russia armed men have been consolidating their hold on key sites in Crimea. Nick Paton Walsh got close to a military base and saw how those armed men took command.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the new face of power at one military base in Crimea. It's not friendly, but very much in charge, and apparently pro-Russian. The Ukrainian flag here pulled down fast.
Let me show you in a matter of hours it all unraveled.
Earlier that morning, the flag was up. We came because their commander, Vladimir Sadovnik had been kidnapped the day before at a checkpoint. His deputy here says the pro-Russian Unity Party were behind it. The commander has called his wife to say he's OK.
SERGEI GUNDER, DEPUTY COMMANDER, BASE A2904 (through translator): If they try to blackmail into giving up the base it won't happen and we will call his abductors terrorists and won't negotiate with them.
WALSH: We meet Vladimir's wife Yulia at his home who hasn't slept with worry.
Her husband called her 40 minutes ago from a new number to say he was held in Simferopol's military headquarters now in pro-Russian hands.
We couldn't confirm that, but she called back and says she's Vladimir's wife, but nobody wants to talk to her.
"They want, I think, him to surrender," she says. "But I believe in my husband and his convictions."
Back at the base, things have moved fast. The deputy tells us so- called self defense forces have burst in. They're not happy to be filmed.
He tells me he's a Ukrainian resident, but not much else that's polite.
That's part of the answer of what happens to the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers still on their bases, still loyal to the new government in Kiev. Pro-Russian militia muscling in.
The deputy explains to me there are about 15 gunmen inside. And they want to take 10 vehicles from the base. He adds that they came back with Vladimir, the commander kidnapped earlier.
This is how power changes hands here -- bloodless, but in the shadow of kidnapping. And at the end of an AK-47.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Baktisuray (ph), Ukraine.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: You're watching News Stream. And still to come this hour, Interpol identifies two men who says he used stolen passports to board that Malaysia Airlines plane. And while there is no apparent terror link to the plane's disappearance, there were new questions about how travel documents are verified.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: All right, coming to you live from Hong Kong you're back watching News Stream.
Now it is the biggest game for Microsoft's new console and it might be the game the Xbox One needs right now. Titanfall is out today in most of the world. It's a science fiction shooting game that allows players to fight inside giant machines. Now the game has a great pedigree, it's from one of the guys who turned Call of Duty it's one of the biggest game franchises in the world and it comes at a very good time for Microsoft, Xbox One sales have lagged behind rival Sony Playstation IV since both consoles were released back in November.
So, how is the game? Well, let's go to New York to get a take on Titanfall. Stephen Totilo is the editor-in-chief of Kotaku. He joins me live from our bureau there in New York. Steven, thank you so much for joining us once again right here on News Stream.
Titanfall, does it live up to the hype?
STEPHEN TOTILO, KOTAKU: Hi, good to see you again. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's multiplayer only, so you have to go in getting ready to go compete with other people and that can be stressful for some gamers, but it's a lot of fun. I had a chance to play it a little bit early. Not that many people playing online yet, but as of midnight last night thousands of people are already playing the game and having a good time with it.
LU STOUT: Pretty good traction so far.
What does the game do differently compared to other shooters out there?
TOTILO: Well, the popular one that a lot of people have heard of is Call of Duty. And Call of Duty actually is in some way the antecedent for this game. The main creators of this game, as you guys just mentioned in the setup, were involved in the creation of Call of Duty and now have kind of come over. They're actually acrimoniously kicked out of their previous company in order to start making this game Titanfall.
What's different is that you're not just a soldier running around. But you can run along walls -- a little more science fiction. And the big thing is the titans, which are these big kind of robot suits that you can get in. So there's a sense of scale that you can be this giant lumbering around -- actually quite agile, I shouldn't say lumbering, where you can do things at a much larger scale. And then you can shrink back down to just a regular person. And you have these sort of giants against regular sized people, which is an unusual type of encounter for a multiplayer games.
These are essentially glorified games of tag for gamers. They like it not so much for the bloodlust, because these games are actually kind of cleaned up in that way. But they like it for the sense of competition. And this is sort of introducing a new sport, or a new wrinkle on the sport of multiplayer first person shooter video games.
LU STOUT: You're description of the gameplay very, very compelling. But do you think this is the going to be the start of something huge. And another big franchise on par with Call of Duty?
TOTILO: The publisher EA certainly hopes so. Microsoft certainly hopes, too. They made an expensive bet in getting the game to be exclusive on the rival Playstation platform, which is very important from that sales battle that you noted before.
They hope it can be a big deal. But everybody is trying. This is a very crowded category. Everybody and their brother is making some sort of multiplayer first person shooter. EA has tried before. The Battlefield games have had some success. So a very competitive category.
But again I have to go back to the pedigree of this game. The main people making it were the same people that made Call of Duty popular. They've made hits before. They'd likely to make a hit again.
LU STOUT: Yeah, strong pedigree. Will it be on another platform? Will we ever see a Titanfall game on the Playstation?
TOTILO: I would expect that by the time we get to a Titalfall 2 or a Titanfall 3, there will be value -- more value and more money for the publisher and the game creators to put the game on as many machines as possible.
You see fewer and fewer games that are exclusive to any one console these days unless the studio is owned by the company making the console. It's not the case here. So, you know, Microsoft paid money, probably, to get this game exclusive in the first place. But I think ultimately it'll be in everybody's interest to have at least subsequent games on Playstation as well.
LU STOUT: And a final question for you, the Xbox One, it definitely needs a hit. How much of a boost will this game give?
TOTILO: It's certainly going to help, but this is early days for both consoles. I mean, we've seen ups and downs with consoles. These things usually have five, six, even 10 year life cycles. We're in our 11th year of the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 going head to head in some way -- 10th or 11th year, depending on how you count it. So it's too early to count anybody out. Certainly, though, it's going to help -- Sony's next big game is Infamous, which comes out several weeks from now. And you're going to see this sort of tit-for-tat going on for quite some time as both companies try to one up each other with interesting video games.
LU STOUT: All right, Stephen, thank you so much for the talk in Titanfall. Stephen Totilo there, editor-in-chief of Kotaku joining me live from New York. Thank you, take care.
Now, you are watching News Stream. Stick around, because still to come in the program, more on the two Iranians, the two stolen passports. And just how big and sophisticated is the market for fake travel documents? Apparently very. What an expert told me after the break.
And it's been 10 years since the Madrid train bombings. We take a look at the legacy of this horrible tragedy through the eyes of one woman who lost a father.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.
Now Interpol's secretary-general says he does not think the disappearance of Malaysian airliner was a terror incident. Now Ronald Noble made the comments as he revealed the names of two men who boarded the plane with stolen passports. Both have been identified as Iranian. and Malaysian investigators say that there is nothing to suggest that they had any connection to terror groups.
Now the ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych says he is still the country's legitimate president and is prepared to return to Kiev as soon as possible. Meanwhile, in Crimea two flights are turned back from Simferapol International Airport, one Ukrainian, one Turkish. Now Russia's Aeroflot Airline seems to be operating normally.
Now one of Oscar Pistorius's friends is on the stand at his murder trial in South Africa. That after the court heard more testimony from the pathologist who carried out Reeva Steenkamp's autopsy. He cast doubt on the timeline of events Pistorius had laid out, estimating Steenkamp ate about two hours before her death, while Pistorius has said that they ate several hours earlier.
Now there is still no sign of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Let's recap what we know so far.
Now early on Saturday morning, the plane with 227 passengers on board took off from Kuala Lumpur heading for Beijing. And less than one hour later it lost contact with air traffic control. What happened next is still a mystery.
Now radar recordings suggest that the plane may have tried to turn around mid-flight and head back toward Malaysia, but the pilot did not communicate this, nor issue a distress signal.
An international search and rescue operation has been underway since then. 34 planes, 40 ships and search crews from 10 countries all scouring the area. And so far, there's been no sighting of the aircraft, just several false leads.
And just adding to the mystery, at least two passengers on the flight boarded with stolen passports. Now there is so far no link between this and the disappearance of the plane. And Interpol says terrorism is not a likely factor.
But the head of Malaysia's civil aviation department says every angle is being considered in this investigation.
So let's get more now on the effort to find the plane. CNN's Jim Clancy, he joins me live from Kuala Lumpur. He joins me for the very latest.
And Jim, you sat down with the CEO of Malaysia Airlines. What did he tell you about the search effort?
JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, he said that the search has been expanded basically to respond to the need to find some trace of this missing airliner.
You know, on one hand you've got the families, on the other hand you have the aircraft industry everyone who travels aboard aircraft, they want to know what happened to this plane? You can't find that answer until and unless you recover the flight data recorded and you can look at what happened to the plane.
Now I asked him because they've had so many days of a broad search with resources from 10 countries trying to find this missing jetliner, is he discouraged. Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AHMAD JAUHARI YAHYA, CEO, MALAYSIAN AIRLINES: What I find amongst the team here is every day that we don't have an answer we are more resolved to get to the answer. We are not discouraged. So, I think when it gets tougher, you know, we just have to be more tough. We just have to be more resolved and pay more attention to every single detail.
It must be there somewhere. We have to find it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CLANCY: All right.
When we look at that video, you can see the stress that he has been under. A lot of the people here have been working almost around the clock to do whatever they can to help in all of this knowing that it's the families who need the answers. And they need to give them -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: Indeed, that airline executive, he's under stress but he is also resolute to get answers for the families that are waiting for it and for everyone around the world just to solve this mystery.
Earlier today, we also heard there in Malaysia from the police force addressing the two passengers traveling on stolen passports. What did they reveal?
CLANCY: Well, combined with Malaysian authorities here and Interpol, what we know now is that the two young men were Iranians and they had come to Kuala Lumpur to get cheap flights that would take them through Beijing, China and then onward to Europe. Did they have any links to terror groups? No, that's Malaysian police said no. Interpol says no, not likely.
Instead, they were two young men traveling illegally, we must say with stolen passports, but were really looking for a better life in Europe. And tonight their families mourn as well as all of the other people who were aboard that flight -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: And that's the thing, this incident, it's a mystery, but above all it's a human tragedy.
Tell us more the feeling among the relatives of those on board the missing plane. How are the friends and family who are gathering there in KL (ph), how are they coping with the loss and the wait for answers?
CLANCY: You know, there's no words to describe what they're going through right now. Everybody knows it. They are sequestered here in Kuala Lumpur. But they are very open in Beijing. And I don't know whether we've got the video or not, but there was a press conference today. Listen to some of this of what happened there.
You can hear just, you know, the anger, the frustration in people's voices. They need the answers. They want to know where they're loved ones are. They want to be close to them once again. They'd like everything to be good again. For now, many of them are just relaying on their faith, their hope, their prayers to get through all of this.
And they have been warned to brace for the worst. they're going to need all of that in the days ahead -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: Indeed, Jim Clancy reporting live from Kuala Lumpur, thank you very much indeed for that report.
Interpol has identified the holders of those two stolen passports as Iranian nationals, but adds that there is no apparent link to terrorism in the plane's disappearance.
Now earlier IU spoke to Phil Robertson, he's the Bangkok based deputy director of Human Rights Watch. And I started by asking for his reaction to the identity of the first stolen passport holder.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL ROBERTSON, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: That's not surprising at all. After the Green Revolution in Iran for human rights and democracy was crushed by the Iranian authorities there are many Iranians that fled to Malaysia. Malaysia is a country where you can get visa free entry for many Middle East passports and so significant number of asylum seekers from Iran did end up in Malaysia.
We've heard of other cases of people from the Middle East seeking asylum in Europe, going through Beijing. Just last month there was a group of Syrians who ended up in Thailand with false passports.
So it's an entirely plausible theory.
LU STOUT: But why use a stolen passport?
ROBERTSON: Well, I mean, there are many people in Malaysia that don't have any sort of status whatsoever -- refugees, migrant workers, significant number of people from all around the world. And, you know, they have the money to move quickly they want to get out, a stolen passport can be one way to do it.
Unfortunately this is quite common.
LU STOUT: Do you believe that the 19-year-old Iranian national was part of a human smuggling operation?
ROBERTSON: It's very possible. It's unclear. I mean, we don't have enough information to say, but often persons like this if they're going to make a play to go to somewhere like Germany or other parts of Europe would need some sort of broker to help them make the arrangements. So, it's very possible you could have some sort of migrant smuggling group that's involved with this.
LU STOUT: If a broker was used, how much would a stolen passport cost?
ROBERTSON: Well, I don't have information about that. I know that certainly that there are significant numbers of stolen passports in the region, countries like Thailand have long had a very sophisticated passport forgery, or adjustment sector here at a base in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand. So, getting a stolen passport unfortunately I think is much easier than most people would think.
LU STOUT: You just mentioned Thailand. It was believed that the stolen passports were sourced in Thailand. Is there a thriving market for recycled stolen passports or falsified passports there?
ROBERTSON: Yes, there has been for many years. That is certainly the case and, you know, the authorities try to crackdown on it, but you know you crack down in one place and two more pop up. And you know there's a lot of money to be made and people taking advantage of that.
LU STOUT: Airport security, now Kuala Lumpur's international airport, it seems extremely efficient and modern, but given what's happened with these stolen passports, is security seriously lacking here?
ROBERTSON: Well, it's very interesting. I was a bit surprised to see that people with stolen passports have been able to elude security at the Malaysia airport. That's one of the more effective and efficient airports in southeast Asia.
But there are a lot of other countries, a lot of other airports where I would have expected, you know, people to smuggle people through with stolen passports a much easier way.
Certainly, Malaysia was not one of the countries I expected that would fall victim to that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: And that was Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch speaking to me earlier.
And as events unfold, you can get up to the minute intel from our website. We have rolling coverage, background information, interactive features to keep you up to date on the latest. Just go to CNN.com.
Now it was March 11, 2004. And four commuter trains were pulling into Madrid's train station when they were bombed by Islamic terrorists. 191 people were killed. It hardly needs to be said that their families and their friends, they were devastated. And now a decade after the attack Al Goodman shows us the face of courage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AL GOODMAN, CNN INTERANTIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Vera de Benito wouldn't ride city buses or any public transportation for years until she got fed up.
VERA DE BENITO (through translator): Why is a terrorist group going to keep me from riding a train after they've already taken away a fundamental pillar of my life.
GOODMAN: The pillar was her father, a telephone installer killed along with 190 other people when Islamic terrorists put bombs on four Madrid commuter trains 10 years ago.
Her father died at Atocha (ph) station, epicenter of the damage. Vera was just nine.
DE BENITO (through translator): First image was my mother, hysterical, trying to call on the phone. I imagine she was trying to look at my father. I miss him so much. He's the first person I think of in the morning and the last person I think of at night.
GOODMAN: Now she's 19 and studying journalism at university.
DE BENITO (through translator): I'd rather focus on him being proud if he could see me achieve my goals, that's why I'm always setting higher targets.
GOODMAN: She's already an intern in the news room of Spain's leading radio network. I wondered would she be able to cover something as devastating as an attack like the one that took her father?
DE BENITO (through translator): If you had asked that a few months ago when I started my career, I might have said no, but now I am sure that I could.
GOODMAN: Vera takes us back to her old neighborhood and speaks a little English while pointing out her old home.
This one, no?
DE BENITO: No.
GOODMAN: The newer building?
DE BENITO: No.
GOODMAN: Her home 10 years ago looked out on Santo Henia (ph) station where one of the trains blew up. She has since moved with her mother and younger sister.
At Santo Henia (ph) her father boarded a different train that day for his fateful ride downtown.
He was coming here Atocha (ph) station. Vera now rides that same train, but the railroad won't let us film her on board saying it might bother other passengers.
DE BENITO (through translator): It's like a small homage, very personal. I don't do big things and tell a lot of people. I go alone, just me and him.
GOODMAN: It's her journey now.
DE BENITO (through translator): All the bad things already happened to me. Nothing worse could occur. And if it does, I will get through it. I have to look happily toward the future, because if not, I'd go crazy.
GOODMAN: Al Goodman, CNN, Madrid.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: And I can't believe it's been 10 years already.
You are watching News Stream. And up next, the technology is ready, but apparently the American public is not.
Now ahead on the program we take a second look at Google Glass.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: Welcome back.
Now this month's Leading Woman made history last year when she became South Korea's first female president.
Now Park Geun-hye was born into the public spotlight and she has had many challenges on the road to office. Now Paula Hancocks reports she is vowing to put her experiences, both good and bad, to good use.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORREPSONDENT: South Korea's first female president Park Geun-hye grew up in the presidential blue house, her father was president for 18 years.
Park got her first taste of politics after her mother was killed in an assassination attempt on her father.
PARK GEUN-HYE, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): With the sudden passing of my mother, heavy responsibilities and duties of the first lady were suddenly forced upon me. It was indeed an arduous task for me, but I would say that my experience during those years continue to be very helpful to me even to this date.
HANCOCKS: Five years after her mother's death, tragedy struck again when her father was assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979.
GEUN-HYE (through translator): After both of my parents passed away, I lived a very normal life. But during the Asian economic crisis that buffeted South Korea in the late 1990s, I was shocked to see what was transpiring in the country and I couldn't just sit idly back knowing how much it took to build up this country.
HANCOCKS: Although Park has presidential roots, her road to political power has been far from easy.
In 2006, she was attacked while campaigning ahead of local elections in Seoul. Park has used the attack and her parents' assassinations as lessons on leadership and trust.
GEUN-HYE (through translator): Regardless of whatever area you're engaged in, but all the more so in the case of politics, I believe that one should value and place the utmost value on trust and confidence.
HANCOCKS: If you could give yourself advice as an 18-year-old, now you know a lot more, now you have experienced life, what would you want to tell yourself?
GEUN-HYE (through translator): The most important thing is to have your own dreams and to passionately pursue those dreams.
HANCOCKS: At the helm of one of the world's leading nations, Park understands the importance of building unity with her neighboring countries.
Now obviously relations between Japan, China and South Korea are strained at times. How can the three countries build a cohesive policy towards North Korea when the policy between themselves is so strained?
GEUN-HYE (through translator): Because issues regarding the perception of history fundamentally has the potential to harm a relationship of trust, this historical understanding poses obstacles in terms of our ability to move foward to serve our common prosperity as well as our shared interests.
In order to further uphold peace and stability here in northeast Asia and for Korea and neighboring nations to move collectively forward, it has been my desire to leave to my future generation, a legacy of friendship and a legacy of being to work together.
HANCOCKS: An incredible outlook and incredible life story there. You're watching News Stream and coming up next, you can add Google Glass to the things that offend people in San Francisco. Why some are reacting only with hostility to the device after the break.
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LU STOUT: Welcome back.
Now there has been a lot of excitement around Google Glass, but not everyone is happy with the wearable computer. Now one woman learned hat the hard way when she was confronted at a bar in San Francisco for wearing the device.
As Dan Simon found out, the incident may reflect a wider culture clash.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm conducting a social experiment, exploring the streets of San Francisco with a pair of Google Glass, the $1,500 wearable computer with a built-in camera.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's Google Glass...
(CROSSTALK)
SIMON (on camera): It is.
(voice-over): Most people are just curious, but this guy is not happy to see me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Google Glasses are about to go in the garbage.
SIMON (on camera): Why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're (EXPLETIVE DELETED) interrupting the world. Privacy. I understand that you can record it.
SIMON (voice-over): The exchange happened in the city's famed Haight Ashbury District, the same area where Sarah Slocum ran into some trouble all because she says she was wearing Google Glass.
This is inside a bar called Molotovs. Slocum says she turned on the camera when things got nasty.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here.
SARAH SLOCUM, ATTACKED FOR GOOGLE GLASS: I never experienced any sort of hatred or animosity for merely wearing Google glass. And it's completely took me off guard.
SIMON: The late-night confrontation apparently part of an angry backlash against Silicon Valley employees who some say are driving up red prices in an already expensive market.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're killing the city. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't touch me. Don't touch me. I'm going to (EXPLETIVE DELETED) sue you.
SLOCUM: She comes up to me and she says, "You're killing the city." At that point, you know, I'm further taken back because, you know, I'm not some big marshmallow man stomping around San Francisco.
SIMON: In fact, Slocum doesn't even work for a technology company. Not everyone, though, was sympathetic. Several San Francisco bars including Molotov's (ph) have now banned the use of Google glass because of concerns about privacy.
When you see somebody wearing these glasses, what do you think?
MEGAN GILLESIE, GOOGLE GLASS CRITIC: It is a symbol of tech elite. It is a symbol of people being able to record you without your consent.
SIMON: But Sarah Slocum says it's an unfair generalization and wants people to know that just because she's wearing glass doesn't mean the camera is on.
SLOCUM: I have no desire to go around and film strangers. I have better things to do with my time.
SIMON: Though, in this case, she was recording. She says she hoped it would calm things down. But here, it seemed to do the opposite.
Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Oh, a number of lessons to be learned there.
OK, time now for the global weather forecast. We are tracking three cyclones, two near Australia, another one near Vanuatu. Let's get details with Mari Ramos. She joins me from the World Weather Center -- Mari.
MARI RAMOS, CNN WEATHER CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kristie. Yeah. One of those cyclones is already kind of fizzling out and we're not going to have to worry about it too much. It's this one right here that was just off the coast of Queensland. You can see it kind of fizzling out and then continuing to move to the east. So that's not going to be too much of a concern.
Gillian, the other storm, this one right over here across the north of Australia, that one begins to weaken as well as it just kind of meanders around. But that one is expected to bring some continued heavy rain across northern portions of Queensland. This is an area that actually could use some rain. It is the only part that -- out of areas that have been getting rain that actually needs it that's still in that drought.
And then the last one is Lusi over here, the one near Vanuatu. That one is the more dangerous one and we're going to talk about that one in just a moment.
But first of all across Australia, some 130 millimeters of rain in the York peninsula. Not here in the south where they actually need it in the southern part of the Gult of Carpentaria (ph). Notice that there's still the potential for some more rainfall, maybe the potential for even some flooding and some rough seas at that cyclone just begins to spin itself out and lose its intensity.
As far as the rest of Australia, temperatures have been quite warm across the central and the Outback portion of the region. And even here in the south what we're going to start to see some cooler temperatures move in as our next front comes in and there's the remnants of the rain in areas farther to the north.
Now, let's talk about Tropical Cyclone Lusi. There you see it over Vanuatu. The islands here are being affected by the storm. The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs in the Asia Pacific region has reported at least one person killed, some 40,000 people have been affected by this. This is a large storm, winds gusting to hurricane strength, to typhoon strength at 120 kilometers per hour. There are flood warnings, there are cyclone warnings across this area that extend even into portions of Fiji.
The storm itself expected to continue intensifying. And as it moves south it should intensify somewhat as it passes between Fiji and New Caledonia. Then after that as it moves into cooler waters it should start weakening and it could -- and I say could -- be an impact -- or have some sort of affect across the north island of New Zealand as we head into the later part of the week, but that's still several days away. For now, I think it's going to be anywhere between New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji the areas that would be affected by this storm.
With my last 30 seconds, I want to take you -- switch gears and take you back down to earth, I guess Kristie. I was going to say up into space, but not really.
This is a Soyuz capsule that three astronauts from the International Space Station came down back to Earth in. There you see the three of them right there -- Michael Hopkins, Ole Kotiv (ph) and Sergei Rasinsky (ph) were in space 166 days. Bad weather near the landing site thought maybe they were going to delay things a little bit, but the did make it back safely.
Come back over to the weather map. You see all the snow? That's the problem. You see all that snow all around? It was snowing pretty hard, even the helicopters had a hard time flying. But they did get here with no problems. Back to you.
LU STOUT: Yeah, good news and snow padding for the Soyuz, right?
RAMOS: Yeah, a little bit, I guess.
LU STOUT: Excellent homecoming. Mari Ramos there. Thank you.
Now Funny or Die is well known for its comedy with famous faces -- Brad Pitt, Will Ferrell, Justin Bieber even, they have all appeared on the site. And the latest features perhaps the most famous face of all -- the U.S. President.
Now here is Barack Obama speaking to Zach Galifianakis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, ACTOR/COMEDIAN: So, do you go to any websites that are .coms or .nets or do you mainly just stick with .govs?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, actually we go to .govs. Have you heard of healthcare.gov?
GALIFIANAKIS: Here we go. OK, let's get this out of the way. What did you come here to plug?
OBAMA: Well, first of all I think it's fair to say that I wouldn't be with you here today if I didn't have something to plug.
Have you heard of the Affordable Care Act?
GALIFIANAKIS: Oh, yeah, I heard about that. That's the thing that doesn't work. Why would you get the guy who created the Zune to make your website?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: As you saw, ooh, it was part of Mr. Obama's media blitz to promote his healthcare site. But that doesn't mean he's going to get off lightly with that Zune reference there.
And that is News Stream, but the news continues at CNN. World Business Today is next.
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