Return to Transcripts main page

NEWS STREAM

Historic Loss For Democrats, as Republicans Flip Senate; U.S. President Vows To Work With Republican Majority To Find Common Ground; November 9 Marks 25th Anniversary Of Fall of the Berlin Wall; Taylor Swift Pulls Catalog From Spotify

Aired November 05, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: A moving and heartfelt message of gratitude you've been watching right there on your screen. Live

footage from Madrid, Spain. Nurse's assistant Teresa Romero speaking just then. She was joined by her husband. Teresa Romero has been released from

the hospital. She was the first person to contract the Ebola virus outside of West Africa. And he doctor now says that she poses no danger. Teresa

Romero speaking just then, giving a message of thanks and gratitude, not cleared of Ebola is leaving the hospital.

Now you're watching News Stream. Now U.S. President Barack Obama is seeing red after Tuesday's midterm elections, possibly in more ways than

one. The balance of power in congress has shifted to the Republican Party, traditionally designated with the color red.

As you can see here, Republicans now have the most seats in the Senate. And that hasn't happened in some eight years.

Now also as expected, Republicans increased their majority in the House of Representatives.

Let's bring in Jonathan Mann for further analysis. And John, this was a sweeping victory for the GOP. Walk us through the results.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, think of this as a lesson in the alphabet and today's letter is the letter M, M for massacre. The

Democrats got clobbered. They lost the Senate. They suffered a setback of historic proportions in the House of Representatives. And they lost

governor's races in states no one expected.

Let's look at the math, first of all. And in the House of the Representatives you have to go back to World War II, the Second World War,

to see a Republican majority like this.

It is at least 242 seats in the 435 member House, basically 242 to 174. Essentially if the House of Representatives were all that mattered,

Republicans could essentially repeal the laws of physics at this point.

Now the Grand Old Party gained seven seats in the Senate, at least. And we're still waiting on results in the Senate race in Alaska that is too

close to call, in Virginia. And in Louisiana there may be a runoff in December.

But the Republicans have a majority. It will be at least 52 to 45. And that makes Kentucky's Mitch McConnell the man of the hour.

McConnell is not a household name around the world, but people in the United States and elsewhere are going to be learning more about him.

What I can tell you about him is this, he was in trouble in his own bid for reelection in his home state of Kentucky, but his Democratic

opponent basically turned out to be her own worst enemy. McConnell won. He was reelected. He's now expected to become the next Senate majority

leader, the man who really will try to complete the Republican's takeover of Congress. And he has plans for the new majority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, (R) KENTUCKY: Americans have seen that what the current crowd in Washington is offering is making us weaker both at home

and abroad. They have had enough. Friends, this experiment in big government has lasted long enough. It's time to go in a new direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANN: But the final M is for misleading. Because a small Senate majority, and we're talking right now about 52 to 45 isn't a guarantee of

anything. Most of the Senate's work really requires a super majority. It needs 60 votes to get anything really difficult adopted. The Democrats did

not have 60 votes before this elections. The Republicans don't have 60 votes now. So the Senate isn't clearly under anyone's control despite the

headlines and despite Mitch McConnell declaring victory.

America's government has been nearly paralyzed leading into this election. And whatever happens now, it may be a little different, but it

still will not be pretty -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: Yeah, thanks for clarifying that. That not a super majority for the Republicans in both houses of congress, still quite a

decisive victory for the party. And we have a Democratic president with two years left in his term. So what does all this mean for actual

governing in the U.S.?

MANN: I think it's going to mean more trouble, to be honest. In the Senate, no one is really in control. In the House of Representatives

where, as we pointed out, the Republicans have a massive majority, remember they spent the last two years fighting among themselves, traditional

Republicans against Tea Party Republicans, or to put it another way pragmatists against people who are much more interested in questions of

principle.

Will the Republicans get interested in actually achieving things, or are they going to be trying to take advantage -- gain advantage against

President Obama? That is not clear.

So the conflict among Republicans perseveres. The conflict with the Democratic President perseveres. What's it going to mean for governing?

We don't know. A good indication will be whether they can even pass a budget. The United States government hasn't done that for years. It's

passed a series of emergency stop-gap spending measures, because it couldn't think of any other way to proceed. That may be the best

indication we have of whether anyone in Washington can really get it together and get down to business.

LU STOUT: Yeah, governance in the wake of this huge Republican sweep, a lot of question marks ahead. Jonathan Mann reporting. Thank you, John.

Now with a GOP majority in both the House and Senate, President Barack Obama will now face a very new reality in congress. And for another take

in what this means for his last two years in office, let's bring in CNN's Mark Preston.

And first before we -- an interesting point that you brought up in your analysis that I read online, what does the midterm result mean for the

Democratic Party? In particular, one person -- not Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton?

MARK PRESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Kristie.

You know, so Barack Obama, as you said, he has two more years left in his presidency. In many ways, he's a lame duck. He needs to focus on

trying to work with Mitch McConnell if he wants to get anything done, any legacy issues done. But as far as politics go, where does that rest? And

I believe it's now going to rest with Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Now Hillary Clinton hasn't said if she's going to run or if she's not going to run, but we all believe here in the United States, in fact, that

she's taking the steps to do so. If she does run, it doesn't appear that she has any opposition. By becoming the nominee, though, she will also

become the head of the party in many ways. And will she help craft the direction of the Democratic Party in the next year, two years, perhaps if

she wins the presidency for four years, maybe eight years down the line?

LU STOUT: So, all eyes still on Hillary and whether or not she can lead the party out of the woods.

Now let's talk about the GOP. Who are the Republican stars to come out of the mid-term election?

PRESTON: Well, you know, we can talk about how Chris Christie was a star. He's the governor of New Jersey. He helped a lot of governors get

elected.

Scott Walker, a governor out of Wisconsin who Democrats specifically unions were trying to defeat because of his anti-union legislation that he

passed in his state.

But there's a couple of other governors that have really started to bubble up a little bit. One is a businessman from Michigan. His name is

Rick Snyder.

Another is John Kasich. He's the governor of Ohio, one of the largest states in the nation. And interestingly enough, Susana Martinez, she's

just won a second term as the governor of New Mexico. She made history here in the United States as the first Hispanic woman ever to be elected

governor. So these are more names that are being added to the mix.

Of course, as our viewers know around the world, the Rand Pauls of the world, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush who was the brother of George W. Bush and son of

George H.W Bush, he is said to be looking at it. A lot of Republicans thinking of running for president now.

LU STOUT: Yeah, and new Republicans started to emerge.

Now Republican leaders say that the midterm election was a referendum on President Obama, but the mood among the American people, are American

voters also angry with Republican leaders in Congress?

PRESTON: Well, you know, they are. So, it's interesting that when you look at the results you would think that the Democratic Party was at

fault for everything. But here in the United States, Americans are laying blame at the doorstep of both President Obama, but also congressional

leaders. The problem is, is that President Obama just happens to be the biggest figurehead, biggest government official here in the United States,

so he bore the brunt of it. He took it on the chin. And Democrats across the country not only here in Washington, but we saw governors all across

the country lose, including the state of Massachusetts, the blue state of Massachusetts that gave us the Kennedies, the elected a Republican governor

last night.

So, Democrats not only felt it here in Washington, they felt it all across the country. And I have to tell you, they are waking up with a

terrible hangover right now trying to figure out how to get through the next two years.

LU STOUT: All right, Mark Preston, appreciate the analysis. Thank you very much indeed for that. Mark Preston reporting live from CNN

Washington.

Now violence on two fronts in Jerusalem this day, an Israeli police officer has been killed, at least a dozen people were injured when a van

crashed into a crowd of pedestrians. Now police say the driver was shot and killed when he got out and started attacking them. They're calling it

a terrorist attack.

Now just a few hours before at the holy site of Temple Mount, known by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, police say a group of Arabs threw stones

and fireworks at them from inside a mosque.

The Muslim worshippers say the officers threw stun grenades into the mosque to clear the way for Jewish protesters.

Now for the latest, let's go straight to Erin McLaughlin. Erin, why are police there calling this a terror attack?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kristie.

Well, this attack took place right on the scene between the eastern and western parts of the city nearby some several very well known hotels in

that area as well.

Now police are saying that the suspect drove a van into a crowd that was just outside a light rail station. After driving into the crowd,

police say the suspect continued driving on, striking several vehicles before coming to a stop at an intersection. At which point, they say he

exited his vehicle and began waving a metal bar, threatening to attack people who were nearby, at which point, they say, they shot and killed him.

Some witnesses saying that they heard around 20 shots fired.

Now police are labeling this as a terrorist attack, but they say they are still trying to find out more information about this suspect who has

been identified by Arab and Israeli media as a Palestinian man from eastern Jerusalem by the name of Ibrahim al-Acari (ph).

Now this is the second kind of attack in a little over two weeks about. On October 22, a man drove his car into a crowded light rail

station there killing a 3-month-old baby and an Ecuadorian woman. And it's really part of a wave of violence we've been seeing in recent months in

Jerusalem first triggered earlier in the year by the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenage boys, which was followed by the kidnapping and

killing of a Palestinian boy, a series of events which ultimately led to the war in Gaza.

So, really, what we're seeing is, is this kind of violence continuing and an Israeli spokesperson telling me that it's very difficult for them,

despite the security increases throughout the city of Jerusalem, to prevent this kind of attack -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: All right, Erin McLaughlin reporting on the wave of violence and rise in tension there in Jerusalem. Thank you, Erin.

You're watching News Stream. And coming up, it was the wall that divided a nation and the world. As the 25th anniversary of the fall of the

Berlin Wall approaches, CNN looks back at our reporting from the Cold War era.

Plus, the head of Virgin Galactic speaks out after the deadly crash of his SpaceShipTwo. And he is still as determined as ever to realize his

ream of space tourism. Hear from him later in the show.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back.

Now the Swedish co-founder of the file sharing website the Pirate Bay has been arrested in Thailand, that's according to local police. Now

Fredrik Neij and the other co-founders were convicted of copyright infringement in 2009. They'd been sentenced to prison and millions of

dollars in fines.

Now Neij reportedly fled to Southeast Asia after he was released on bail.

So why is Pirate Bay still running if what it's doing is illegal? Now the short answer is that they have moved their servers into the cloud. And

they use technical tricks to hide the location of their cloud host, making it difficult for police to bust the site.

But authorities are not throwing up their hands. Now some countries like the Netherlands are trying to block the site entirely.

Now from 1961 to 1989, a wall through the center of Berlin did more than just divide the city, it was a symbol of the divide between east and

west. It embodied the Cold War era. And CNN was there when the wall came down 25 years ago. And where they're now as Germany prepares to

commemorate the historic event this Sunday.

Now CNN's Fred Pleitgen spent his childhood in Cold War Berlin. His father was a journalist for West German TV inside East Germany.

Now take a look at this very personal report, courtesy the Pleitgens.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A drive through the Leipziger Strassa in Berlin is is like a journey back in time for me.

My dad was a correspondent for West German TV DRD (ph) in East Berlin. And we lived right here on this street.

Fritz Pleitgen, ran the bureau in East Berlin from 1977 until 1982, one of the people the Communist regime feared most.

FRITZ PLEITGEN, JOURNALIST: It was war of airwaves, even more than a military war, because there was a competition between East Germany and West

Germany.

FRED PLEITGEN: We went back to our old house together to talk about the old days that I can barely remember, but that were among the most

challenging of his career.

This video was provided to CNN by the West German broadcasting company. It shows my dad and his crew getting harassed by East German

agents while trying to interview the author and opposition figure Stefan Heim (ph) in 1979.

FRITZ PLEITGEN: They wanted to stop our contacts with the East German population. That was a nightmare that there could be an alliance of West

German correspondence with the people of East Germany.

FRED PLEITGEN: Many who talked to western media were jailed, the reporters constantly observed.

On videos like this one, the East German secret police showed their spying methods. They did the same to us. Their code name for my father

was The Tiger.

FRITZ PLEITGEN: They broke in, into our flat, but also in our office. They took pictures and sometimes they wanted to show me that they were in,

that I got the impression well I'm observed.

FRED PLEITGEN: Imagine trying to raise a family, first with three and later with four children in that kind of environment.

What was family life like? Because to me it was always -- it seemed very nice, but I'm sure to you and especially mom, it wasn't that great.

FRITZ PLEITGEN: Yeah, it wasn't two easy for your mother. She had always real problems with the border guards. And she was not ready to talk

them -- to them smiling, because she hated their questions.

FRED PLEITGEN: But our family story also shows how far Germany has come since the fall of the wall. Those ruins behind us on this family

picture from 1980 looked like this today.

FRITZ PLEITGEN: This was the most desolate square in whole Europe. It was lost. And now it has changed into the most beautiful square of

Germany.

FRED PLEITGEN: And the western reporters, so dreaded by the communist leaders, played their part, making Germany's peaceful unification possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Beautiful and revealing report there.

And Frederik Pleitgen, he joins us now with more live from his hometown. And Fred, 25 years after the wall fell, how do you see Berlin

today?

FRED PLEITGEN: Well, the transformation is absolutely amazing, Kristie. I've been living here now for the past 15 years, because since

then I've been to America. I've lived in a couple of other places. And the transformation just in that time is absolutely amazing. The way that

the two parts of the city have grown together.

And of course it was difficult for both the East Germans and the West Germans. For a long time it was very high employment in the eastern part

of Germany. The West Germans weren't all that happy, because they had to pay so much for unification, over $1 trillion was paid to bring these two

countries back together, to bring the east's economy up to speed, to build highways, to make the towns look nice again.

So it was a difficult process, but if you look at this city today, and you look at this country today, you really see how far the place has come

and that certainly every penny was worth it, Kristie.

LU STOUT: And we have to talk about what's behind you, the Trabant, it's a symbol of East German economic failure. And it looks so tiny behind

you. What is it like to drive, to get in there?

FRED PLEITGEN: Well, it's -- I mean, for me it's absolutely difficult. But you're absolutely right. It's tiny. It's made of PVC

plastic. It has 25 horsepower.

By the way, we are here at the east side gallery, which is the last and largest sort of remaining part of the wall. And as you can see here,

there's already people coming here. If we spin around a little more there's already people taking pictures. The Trabant definitely gets a lot

of looks anywhere it goes.

But since we are the show where news and technology meet, we want to show you what this technology is like. So I'm going to try and get in

here. And that alone is certainly worth looking at.

So, I have to put my knee around the steering wheel like this. And, Kristie, one of the things about the Trabant is people always said it was

the most silent car in the world, because you hold your ears closed with your knees, because they're so high because it's so tiny.

So what you need to do is right here there's a little valve that you have to open for the gas to come. And here is what's called a choke, which

is something that I think most cars don't have anymore.

You just put the key in, also isn't that easy. And then you just hope that the car starts. There you go.

Oh -- oh, wow.

There we go.

That is 26 horsepower, Kristie.

Now, there's the door. And we're ready to take a little spin. Got to get the folks who are taking pictures out of the way first.

See, they're all loving it. Look at that. There you go.

I'll just drive a couple of feet. I hope I don't hit anything.

All right. We'll stop here.

I need to stop here, because otherwise I'll run into our satellite truck.

But it's certainly a car that's very interesting to drive. The breaks don't really work. And you're certainly not going to go very fast.

As you can see in the back it doesn't really meet any emission standards either. But it certainly gets you a lot of very positive looks

at a lot of people taking this car's picture, Kristie.

LU STOUT: I love how you spin it there. I mean, very poor emissions, what 26 horsepower and we saw the power of that just now.

FRED PLEITGEN: 26 horsepower, and I mean...

LU STOUT: And the breaks, they don't really work -- yeah, go ahead.

FRED PLEITGEN: Yeah and getting in and out is just not easy when you're my size.

But, we had an artist make this car beautiful. His name is Martin Raunberg (ph). And he really did a great job with it as you can see with

all the paintings he had -- yeah, this is a tree of people, which symbolizes the East German population going through the wall. Here's the

Communist Star. It is certainly a car that it looks really great and everybody that you drive past here in Berlin really loves it -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: And I love it, too. This is a low tech time capsule. A bit of history. Wonderful work of art today. Thank you so much for the

tour. Enjoy the ride. Fred Pleitgen reporting live from Berlin. Thank you, Fred.

Now you're watching News Stream. Still to come, and keep it here we've got more coming up. The SpaceShipTwo disaster isn't stopping Richard

Branson from pursuing space travel. Now the British billionaire has recovered from failure before. That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, you are back watching News Stream.

Now the dream of space tourism lives on for Virgin group founder Richard Branson despite last week's deadly spacecraft accident.

Now Branson has said the test flight failure, which left a co-pilot dead won't stop him from pursuing space travel. Nic Robertson spoke to a

friend of the British billionaire about how he has responded to adversity before.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAG PIKE, RICHARD BRANSON FRIEND: This is shortly before disaster. That's when it was sinking. That's me on the radio.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRSEPONDENT: Calling for help?

PIKE: Calling for help.

ROBERTSON: Dag Pike relives the moment disaster struck.

PIKE: So it is a very scary moment, you know. And it's the only time I've ever taken to a life raft, you know.

ROBERTSON: It was 1985. He and Richard Branson were on a recordbreaking Transatlantic speed boat crossing.

PIKE: He just coped with it. He was doing what he was told. Get in to the life raft.

ROBERTSON: Their boat, the Virgin Challenger I sank less than an hour from victory.

But in failure, Branson saw success.

PIKE: It was the best publicity. And that's what Richard is so good at.

ROBERTSON: From their life raft, Branson spots someone filming their rescue.

PIKE: The first thing he did was can I buy that video from you? Because he saw that as an essential part of the whole operation.

ROBERTSON: Buoyed by the experience, Branson gave the crew six months to build a replacement, Virgin Challenge II.

PIKE: Richard was really good -- I think it was very enjoyable working with him. He just said here's the money, you guys get on with the

job.

ROBERTSON: They did it, taking two hours off the Transatlantic crossing record. At a reunion aboard the Virgin Challenger last year,

Branson credits the craft for launching his airline.

RICHARD BRANSON, CEO, VIRGIN: The boat helped us put Virgin Atlantic on the map and the Virgin brand on the map.

ROBERTSON: But once again, the Virgin Challenger was a vehicle for promotion, pushing Branson's next goal: space.

BRANSON: The next challenge is to go to space. So, it's perhaps the greatest challenge of all as far as my lifetime.

ROBERTSON: Pike, who admits he knows very little about space, has a cautionary tale. You need to be tough to work with the Virgin boss. After

breaking the Atlantic record almost 30 years ago, he says Branson wanted a race to boat into harbor.

PIKE: And I said, Richard, we are not going full speed down the harbor. You know, we'll kill someone.

He said, this is my boat. You get off the helm.

ROBERTSON: But Branson, he says, backed down, even apologized later.

Today, Pike is in no doubt if Branson called he'd go to sea with him in a heart beat.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Bristol, England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: You're watching News Stream. Still to come, Taylor Swift is ending another relationship, this time with an online music streaming

service. Find out the reason behind the digital breakup.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.

At least one police officer has been killed, at least a dozen people injured, when a van ran into a group of pedestrians in Jerusalem. The

driver was shot and killed by police. They're calling it a terrorist attack. And just hours earlier Israeli police say Palestinians threw

stones at them at the holy site of the Temple Mount. But Muslim worshipers at the Noble Sanctuary say police threw stun grenades into the mosque to

clear the way for Jewish protesters to hold a rally.

In Spain, a nurse's assistant has left a Madrid hospital after 30 days having beaten Ebola. Teresa Romero Ramos says she is still weak, but is

willing to, as she says, bleed dry in order to help other infected patients.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERESA ROMERO RAMOS, FRM. EBOLA PATIENT (through translator): For those around me, and to be able to continue the fight in this world. I

thank god and also Santiago Hospital for giving me my life and to be able to be here, be able to share my experience, but you'll have to be patient

and let me recuperate and get better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT: Midterm elections in the United States have played out much as predicted with Republicans extending their majority in the U.S. House

and taking control of the Senate for the first time in eight years.

Exit polls show that most voters are dissatisfied with both the Obama administration and Republican leaders in congress.

Now pop star Taylor Swift is known for her breakup ballads, but you can no longer listen to them on the music streaming app Spotify.

The Grammy winner pulled her entire catalog from the service earlier this week. And the move came just days after Swift released her new album,

1989. Now Billboard magazine says it sold nearly 1.3 million copies in its first week, the best weekly sales number for any album in more than a

decade.

Now Swift has spoken out against streaming and file sharing before.

Now let's bring in our regular contributor Nicholas Thompson for me. He is, of course, the editor of The New Yorker.com. Nick, good to see you.

And this is the puzzle here, because I thought streaming services, they were supposed to save the music industry. And yet we have Taylor Swift,

this huge pop star, turning against it in terms of Spotify. Why?

NICK THOMPSON, NEW YORKER.COM: Well, it's very complicated.

I mean, the key fact is that the music industry is shrinking dramatically, right. It's less than half the size it was 12 years ago. So

there's a lot of concern, there's a lot of frustration, there's a lot of sense that the things that we have right now they're not as good the things

we used to have. They don't make us as much money.

Taylor Swift is making a lot of money, but she's not making as much money as someone who -- someone in her dominant position would have in say,

1989.

So, she's sort of lashing out at the things she has. But it doesn't make a lot of sense.

It makes sense to take a new album off Spotify and to say, look, if this albums not on Spotify, people will download it from iTunes. I'll make

more money from that. That I understand, that she's done before that other artists have done that.

It seems like there could be substitution, not on Spotify, buy it elsewhere. But taking the back catalog off, that's strange, because she

gets paid for every song in her back catalog that gets paid on Spotify and it's not as though not having those things on Spotify are going to make

more people buy the albums. The people who want those albums probably have them.

So this is a little bit of a puzzling move for me.

LU STOUT: But in a way she can do it because she's just so big and so powerful. But in general just how much power do music artists have in the

digital era? I mean, can they have an album today as big as, or bigger than say Michael Jackson's Thriller album back in 1984? Can you do that

today in the digital era?

THOMPSON: No, not remotely, you can't. You know, the industry has shrunk so much and there are so many alternatives, there are so many

different artists out there.

So there are two things that are going on. Number one, the big artists are not selling as much as they used to. The second thing -- and

that's not, you know, that's not surprising. We knew when the digital transformation came 15 years ago that that would happen, the big artists

wouldn't make quite as much money.

But what's surprising to me is that their relative share of the music industry is as high as it ever was, right, so the top 1 percent selling

artist in the music industry take about 80 percent of the revenue. So the -- you know, sort of the income distribution is sort of like one of the

most unequal countries in the world.

So the top artists are still taking a huge percentage of a shrinking pie. And that's different from what I and many others had expected a long

time ago where we thought -- and I thought up until recently -- that the digital transformation in the music industry would lead to more leveling,

it would lead to, you know, the top artists making less, but the smaller artists making more. And it seems like what's really happened is everybody

is just making less.

LU STOUT: All right, Nick Thompson there and the dilemma of streaming and the pop star and the wannabe pop stars. Many thanks, indeed, for that.

Now, let's talk about a song that has returned to social media: the cover of Space Oddity recorded on the international space station. It is

officially back on YouTube. Astronaut Chris Hadfield had permission from David Bowie and his publisher to post this version for one year.

(MUSIC)

LU STOUT: It was an Internet sensation with nearly 24 million views. And this time there is a two year agreement to keep Hadfield's crooning and

that incredible video online.

Now coming up, CNN was on the ground when the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago. And we are there today as the city prepares to commemorate the

event. After the break, a special report from Berlin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, this is News Stream.

Now on Sunday, Germany commemorates the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now for 25 years it was one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War. Our

Jim Clancy was there in 1989 as the wall came down. And now he is back in Berlin for the anniversary of that monumental day.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hammers in hand, Germans battered the wall that had divided this country for some 28 years. But everyone

witnessed seemed unthinkable: for most, if not all their lives, East Germans knew even approaching the wall could have resulted in their deaths

from armed border guards. And suddenly they were on top.

Those were heady times. Of course, everyone knew they were witnessing history, but that didn't stop us from turning to one another and asking can

we really be seeing this happening? Even diplomats were jarred. I remembered talking to then U.S. ambassador Vernon Walters (ph) as events

unfolded. And he said at first there were fears that either Moscow or the East Germans themselves might try to roll it all back as some kind of a

mistake.

But as the situation evolved, he soberly assessed that things have literally gone so far no one could unravel them.

VERNON WALTERS, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY: What has happened is irreversible and that once again the Germans of both parts of Berlin can

get together.

We ought to remember how we got here. We got here because we were strong. We got here because we were determined. And we got here because

we defended the free choice of people to choose their own destiny.

CLANCY: The night of November 9, 1989, we reported how the German people made that decision.

After almost three decades of separation, Germans of east and west embraced in a common victory. Some came because they wanted to test

whether it was true, others embittered by years of repression came vowing they would never go back.

Around the clock preparations for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall have been underway for some time. Here at the Brandenburg Gate,

the mystic center, really, of the German people, it came some time later, but it was here that officials from east and west were hoping to get

together for an official opening. And what they discovered was that nobody wanted to listen to the speeches.

Germans began to stream over in a light rain, many of them carrying umbrellas, balancing on top of the wall. They were celebrating by popping

champagne bottles, drinking beers and lighting sparklers.

There was a mood, a party mood, a mood that they knew that history was being made, that they were apart of that history.

It was an incredible time for the Germans and for the entire world. It was the time that the wall came down.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: We'll have that report.

And that is News Stream. I'm Kristie Lu Stout. And World Sport is next.

END