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Hong Kong Police Repel Protest Expansion; UN Misses Deadline In Pathway To Controlling Ebola; Preserving Japan's Traditional Machiya House; Fukushima Tours Look To Raise Awareness, Interest In Rebuilding; India's Bouncer Training Grounds; South Africa Relocates Rhinos To Defend Against Poaching

Aired December 01, 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, HOST: I'm Krsitie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream where news and technology meet.

Now protesters in Hong Kong step up action against the government. We'll look at what they hope to achieve.

Touring a disaster zone: going inside the area devastated by Japan's tsunami and nuclear disaster.

And we take you to a very special village in India where hundreds of men train to become night club bouncers.

It's 9:00 p.m. here in Hong Kong, which means night has fallen. And it's after dark when police and pro-democracy protesters have clashed most

often.

Now at the moment, the main protest site in downtown Hong Kong is calm. But in the early hours of this Monday morning it was a very different

story. Police and protesters clashed in some of the worst violence at the Admiralty site since demonstrations began there some two weeks ago.

Now today's protests centered around the government headquarters of the Admiralty District of Hong Kong Island. Now protesters gained and then

lost a road near the government offices. It's not far from the main protest site where tents lined the road. This is one of the main roads

connecting the east and west sides of Hong Kong Island and it's been blocked by tents for weeks now.

Now there's still a smaller protest site in one of Hong Kong's main shopping districts, Causeway Bay. But the protest camps on the Kowloon

side of Victoria Harbor have been removed.

Now CNN's Ivan Watson was in Admiralty when the violence broke out last night. He's been there for much of the day. And he joins me now live.

And Ivan, student leaders, they have vowed to escalate this protest. Why? What do they hope to achieve?

IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they wanted to put pressure on the government.

I'm sorry, Kristie, there's a bit of a commotion here, one of the demonstrators said that some people came in and tried to remove some of the

barriers. We're not exactly sure what has happened right now, but clearly some people who are not welcome are being pushed away. And tempers are

flaring a little bit here at the main protest site.

So, Kristie, basically the protest leaders acknowledge that they failed trying to put pressure on the Hong Kong government, trying to obstruct the

entrances, to blockade it, to paralyze it, to force the government to give in to their demands.

What the police showed us before dawn this morning is that they were able to very quickly and easily rout thousands of demonstrators who tried to

expand their protest encampments to other entrances to the Hong Kong city government headquarters, that they were able to very quickly rout those

demonstrators and remove the barricades from that area.

Now we're seeing some confrontations here, some scuffles here between different groups of demonstrators. Not sure what exactly is going on.

We'll try to get to the bottom of that. But the police have not made any moves into this protest encampment since earlier this morning. Their only

remit, it seems to have been was to stop the protesters from expanding their occupy movement -- Kristie.

LU STOUT: A number of people are gathered there this evening, the tension underlying and very much still there with that example of that scuffle

breaking out behind you. Of course, as you said that needs a little bit more investigation to figure out just what was going on. It was not

involving police there.

And separately, Ivan, I know you've been monitoring this new response from Beijing aimed at western supporters of this umbrella movement who are

looking for visas. What can you tell us about this angle to the story?

WATSON: That's right.

Well, this has been very much a slap in the face from the Chinese government to British lawmakers, a committee of British lawmakers that

wanted to come to Hong Kong to investigate this very phenomenon. And the Chinese government basically said it would not allow these British

lawmakers to travel to Hong Kong, a former British territory.

The Chinese foreign ministry unapologetic about this decision. Take a listen to what they had to say earlier today in Beijing.

I apologize, we don't seem -- I apologize, Kristie, it's a bit of chaotic here and we don't seem to have the sound of the Chinese foreign ministry

spokeswoman saying that she was again unapologetic about refusing entry to British lawmakers to come here, arguing that they were going to try to

disrupt the relationship between China and Britain.

The British lawmakers have since come back and said that they're going to demand an emergency debate of this in the Chinese parliament. And the Hong

Kong government, which we have reached out to, have basically told us that this is an affair that rests in the hands of the Chinese central

government, which of course according to the basic law, the mini constitution for Hong Kong, it's the Chinese central government that

commands the control of the foreign policy and as well for the defense policy.

And that just basically gets to some of the crux of what is the tension underlying here, that the demonstrators fear that the Chinese central

government in Beijing is trying to impose too much control over the future elections for Hong Kong's chief executive in 2017. They want a more

democratic election. And the Hong Kong government and the Chinese central government and the Chinese central government refused to budge on the

makeup of these elections.

Back to you, Kristie.

LU STOUT: Yeah, and that context is so very much needed for us to understand these scenes behind you. It it now what 9:06 p.m. local time

here in Hong Kong. It's usually at the nighttime when clashes have broken out in the past.

I noticed behind you someone was wearing a yellow vest. It said first aid on it. What is the potential for more violence, for more clashes to break

out tonight. And what would the response be?

WATSON: Well, you know, it's very clear that there's -- the protest leaders, Kristie, that they feel that their move to try to put more

pressure on the government was a failure, that it did not succeed basically. And we've heard of some disputes within the protest movement

about those very tactics.

I spoke to Joshua Wong today, that teenage student leader who said, you know, we're going ot make some kind of statement later today about the

direction of this protest movement.

And what's important to note is that the Hong Kong government has basically ceded this territory in central Hong Kong for more than two months to the

demonstrators. They have allowed the demonstrators to disrupt daily life in this part of Hong Kong.

And one of the results of that is it has basically sapped the support from Hong Kong residents for the protest movement. Two polls that were issued

by Hong Kong Universities this month showed that a majority of Hong Kong residents surveyed were in favor of getting rid of this protest movement of

the encampment and bringing life back to normal.

So the protest leaders, the protesters themselves know that they're under pressure, increasingly from public opinion, to try to either reinvigorate

this protest movement or to perhaps strip it away. So, this morning's clashes clearly putting more pressure on the protest movement and perhaps

explaining some of the disagreements that we've seen here in the...

LU STOUT: All right. And that was CNN's Ivan Watson reporting live from the heart of the Umbrella Movement. Ivan has been fixed on this story for

us from the very beginning.

Now police have used an array of tactics to contain and to repel the protesters. Now they first, they fired tear gas in late September in a

move that was widely criticized by the protesters. And since then, we have seen a lot of pepper spray being used as well as the familiar baton.

But also an unfamiliar spray used during these protests at a heated confrontation in the gritty Mong Kok area last week.

Now police said it's a pepper based solution, which has been referred to in local media as, quote, "tear water." A team on the ground reported

stinging eyes and skin as well as difficulty breathing.

Now, let's turn to the battle against Ebola. The United Nations has missed its December 1 target day for containing the outbreak. Now officials had

hoped to have 70 percent of Ebola patients isolated and 70 percent of those who have died buried safely.

Now in October, a WHO official told CNN that missing the goal will mean more people will die and that even more resources will be needed to fight

the outbreak.

Now Nima Elbagir has been to the Ebola hotzone in Liberia. She joins me now live from CNN London. And Nima, why is the UN missing the Ebola target

that it set for today?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there almost seemed to be an optimism, Kristie, in terms of there been an infrastructure in

place that would allow them to meet these targets in the first place. When the UN agency that was tasked to deal with Ebola was set up, the belief was

at the time that there would be this international response infrastructure building up behind it, that there would be more aid workers being able to

move more freely into this Ebola zone. We haven't seen that. We still have so many countries, including the United States and many countries

inside Africa -- Australia is another country -- where aid workers that go to the Ebola zone don't have any guarantee that they will be allowed back

in, that they will be able to go back in without being quarantined.

So that has really had what Emma Seph (ph) at the time, Doctors Without Borders, called a chilling effect on their response.

And then you have this other issue, which is the reality that we have never seen an Ebola outbreak like this before, especially the outbreaks that

we're seeing in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Guinea has followed the more usual pattern of it not being a very densely populated areas. And so the containment there has been more successful.

But then when you look at places like the Sierra Leone capital Freetown or Monrovia in Liberia, these are very, very populated areas and that allows

the virus to spread almost unchecked.

Liberia was somewhere where there had been some more optimistic signs, but now we're hearing of these other outbreaks in the very remote southeast of

the country where there aren't any clinics. It just -- it has to be acknowledged that the containment is going to need more work and perhaps as

disheartening as it is that at this first hurdle the international community has failed to clear it, perhaps it will be an opportunity for

people to go back and say, well, unless more action is taken, more people will absolutely die.

LU STOUT: Yeah, it'll be a long, hard fight to contain Ebola.

Nima Elbagir on the story for us from CNN London, thank you, Nima.

Now residents in northeastern Nigeria say Boko Haram fighters have launched an attack on their town Damaturu. They reported hearing gun battles and

explosions in the early hours today, forcing many people to get out of their homes and hide.

Now witnesses also say at least one explosion was caused by a female suicide bomber in a market in nearby Maduguri.

Now, no word yet on the number of fatalities. Boko Haram has made repeated attacks on civilians, including one that killed at least 78 people last

week.

You're watching News Stream. Still to come on the program, in India where violence against women is all too common, two sisters who say that they

were sexually harassed fight back. And it was all caught on camera.

Also ahead, a tour with a difference: the scene of Japan's nuclear disaster Fukushima is opened up to visitors.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Welcome back.

Now in India, two women are being commended for fighting sexual harassment. Amateur video captured what happened on a bus. It shows the women fighting

with three men while passengers look on.

Now the woman swinging the belt says that she was coming to her sister's defense after the men touched them and made lewd gestures. Our partner

network CNN IBN reports police have arrested the men.

Now, the city of Fukushima, Japan remains devastated nearly four years after an earthquake and tsunami caused a nuclear disaster. And now tour

guides are taking people through the abandoned neighborhoods.

Will Ripley shows us what they are trying to accomplish.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The first thing people ask about is the radiation. Is it even safe to go in when most are kept out? Our local

government tour guide says contamination levels are low allowing quick trips into the safer parts of Fukushima prefecture, still empty from the

worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Nearly 4 years later, outsiders are getting a rare look at this desolate, abandoned place. Damage from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami sits

untouched, crumbling buildings are falling further into disrepair, weeds are slowly taking over.

What do they say when they see it for the first time?

YUSUKE KATO, FUKUSHIMA TOUR GUIDE: At first, they say unbelievable

RIPLEY: Nobody can live here, not yet. Fear lingers about the invisible threat from radiation released by the damaged reactors. The soil and

groundwater is contaminated.

Agriculture gone.

KENICHI BAMBA, FUKUSHIMA TOUR GUIDE: Gone.

RIPLEY: Businesses closed.

KATO: Absolutely.

RIPLEY: So what's left?

BAMBA: Nothing.

RIPLEY: Kenichi Bamba says these tours are part of a long-term plan to rebuild Fukushima prefecture. For him a painful, personal task.

You're from Fukushima.

BAMBA: Yes, absolutely.

RIPLEY: What do you think when you look around at all this damage?

BAMBA: Actually, I've come here several times but still I cannot say anything. Just sad. Just sad.

RIPLEY: The nuclear plant is being taken apart. It will take decades and billions of dollars to make it safe. I was there a few months ago, forced

to wear protective gear. It's one of the most dangerous places on Earth and it's visible in the distance, far too close for many to ever feel safe here

again.

Surveys show only about a fifth of former residents want to come back, for many, moving on is easier than facing this.

We're standing 2 kilometers, more than a mile from the coast. Yet here sits a boat that was picked up and dumped by the tsunami. Boats and cars

are all over this field, reminders of all the people who died here.

Akiko Ishizuka prays for her mother and father-in-law. Small Shrines like this are everywhere.

"It's been almost four years," she says, "and it's still so sad to come here and remember that they're gone."

Fukushima tour guides hope by sharing the plight of these people, others will be inspired to come here and rebuild.

KATO: We want to encourage local people for the revitalization of Fukushima.

RIPLEY: They hope this school gym, graduation banner still hanging, will have students again; this dusty piano will have someone to play it; and

this nuclear ghost town will someday be brought back to life.

Will Ripley, CNN, Fukushima, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Wow, such an eerie landscape captured by aerial drone there.

Now you're watching News Stream. And still to come, working out is a way of life in this Indian village, but they're not training to be athletes,

instead the goal is to become a better bouncer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Now in a village on the outskirts of New Delhi there is a generation of men who are embracing an old tradition so they can excel at a very modern job.

CNN's Sumnima Udas visited this special training ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You could call this the strongest village in India, a 1,000 pushups no problem. Some claim they

can even do 2,500. Lifting a 300 kilogram motorcycle like a box of books.

Men of all ages, sizes and levels of strength train together in the outskirts of New Delhi. Two hours in the morning and two in the evening.

So this is what you call a traditional Indian gym. You've got a mud pit, some bricks, a rope and just a whole lot of peer pressure.

For generations, men clad in loin cloths, wrestling in mud pits, have transfixed spectators in rural India.

"Traditionally, we're a farming community, but we always had a passion for wrestling. When there was no television or night clubs, wrestling was the

only source of entertainment," he says.

Vijay Tanwar wanted to win an Olympic medal, but when that didn't work out he found opportunity at home.

"15 years ago there was an influx of night clubs and there was a huge demand for bouncers. So I thought why not," he says.

Tanwar also trained hundreds of other young boys from the village, their sole motivation bouncery, as they call it here, in New Delhi's night clubs.

Where is this craze coming from?

"We have a healthy lifestyle. We earn good money. What else does one need in life?" He asks.

They are strict vegetarians. They also don't drink or smoke. But how do they reconcile traditional village customs by day and modern city

lifestyles by night?

"We adjust," he says. "When there's a need, people figure it out."

For a bunch of brawny men, they are a pragmatic and happy lot.

So we've managed to request them to stop working out for a few seconds to take this picture.

Sumnima Udas, CNN, New Delhi

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Sumnima loving that moment. And why not?

Oh, you're watching News Stream. We'll be back right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Now Israeli security forces say they shot a teenage Palestinian woman after she stabbed a civilian and then tried to attack a soldier. They say the

civilian was lightly wounded. The woman is in serious condition.

In Hong Kong, pro-democracy protesters clash with police late Sunday night and into the early hours of Monday morning. And a short time ago, our Ivan

Watson saw more confrontations this time between different groups of protesters. Now earlier, police repelled protesters with batons and pepper

spray. And the clashes were some of the move violent we've seen at the main protest site since demonstrations began more than two months ago.

Boko Haram fighters have launched new attacked in Nigeria. Eyewitnesses in the town of Damaturu say gun battles and explosions have been heard since

the early hours, forcing many people to get out of their homes and hide in their nearby city of Maduguri. At least one explosion was caused by a

female suicide bomber in a market. No word yet on the number of fatalities.

Iraq's prime minister says the nation's army has been weakened by corruption. A review of personnel records found 50,000 soldiers are

getting paid, but not turning up for duty. Instead, they bribe their commanders so they don't have to show up.

South Africa is ramping up efforts to save endangered rhinos after a record 1,020 were killed by poachers this year. And Kruger National Park in

northeastern South Africa is leading the fight.

Diana Magnay reports on the park's new tactic to keep the animals safe.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MAGNAY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Above the poaching hot spot, a veterinarian takes aim. This is a dart gun. His goal

is save not to slaughter. A flash of pink on the rump. Hit is good. On the ground a veterinary team stands by weary around the stunned animal ready

with a blind fold as the drugs kick in.

(on camera): So the rhino is darted with a mix of immobilizer and tranquilizer. It takes about three to five minutes from the time its hit to

get on the ground and from that moment on the process is incredibly fast. Oxygen helps with breathing. The horn is micro chipped for poaching

endeavors. DNA samples are taken.

MARKUS HOFMEYR, HEAD OF VETERINARY SERVICES: If a rhino gets poached you can take a piece of the horn and link it to a carcass.

MAGNAY (voice-over): And then another shot to partially reverse the anesthetic.

(on camera): This is clearly one of the most critical moments to get the rhino up using its own body force having given it a partial reversal of

tranquilizer. We have to make sure we don't get in the way.

(voice-over): The team haul the rhino to its feet. It takes a few steps toward the trail their will carry it to safer ground in the protected zone

in the national park. This is why. Just a few miles further north, a rhino carcass lies where it was shot ten days ago.

They have such a backlog of cases it's taken them now to get here. The national park shares a 350 kilometer border. This is right beside the

caucus, all that separates the countries. It's no deterrent when rhino horn can fetch $100,000 per kilogram on the black market.

Fueled by demand from Asia where they wrongly believe that rhino horns can cure diseases like cancer. The park operation estimates there are 15

poaching groups in the park at any one time.

MAJ. GEN. JOHAN JOOSTE, HEAD OF ANTI-POACHING: If I give you a number of last month, which was a particular bad month, we know for a fact that about

600 poachers infiltrated from Mozambique.

MAGNAY: He has transformed Kruger's ranger into military style anti- poaching units. But they can only do so much.

This new push to relocate the rhinos helps, but South Africa has lost a record 1020 rhinos so far this year.

As long as rhino horn remains a status symbol in Asia, a long debunked notion that it has medicinal benefits, governs a multibillion black market,

the killing will continue.

This ancient species slaughtered for the horn which for millenia has been its first line of defense.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: Such extraordinary animals.

Let's get more now from Diana. She joins me live from Johannesburg. And Diana, why is there this new push for more rhino relocations?

MAGNAY: Well, because the rhinos that find themselves near the Mozambique border and in these hotspots are incredibly vulnerable. And if you think

about the size of the Kruger National Park where half of South Africa's rhinos are, about 10,000 of them, it's very difficult for the anti-poaching

teams to have enough oversight over the entire park, especially with 10 to 15 poaching groups in the park at any one time and that's why they're

relocating them from that strip near the border to a much more protected zone much further south so that it's much more difficult for poachers to

get near them.

But that said, Kristie, actually rhino relocations aren't a particularly new endeavor. And I think it's important to note here that Dr. Ian Player

(ph) who is a very, very renowned South African conservationist and the man who pioneered the drugs and the methods to relocate rhinos like this back

in the 1960s, he passed away yesterday, Sunday, at his home here in South Africa.

And there have been condolences coming through from the president Jacob Zuma who said that he had put South Africa on the map from the environment

minister. So I think it's important to remember his efforts to build South Africa's rhino populations back up from near extinction in the middle of

the last century to where they are now, which is around 20,000 or so.

But what we have seen in the last few years -- and really exponentially over the last few months -- is that the poaching rate has just gone up like

that. And that is why these relocations, there is a new push, for these kinds of relocations, Kristie.

LU STOUT: The poaching rate is going up, rhino relocation may help in the fight against poachers, but then you have the demand side. I mean, what

more must be done to keep these animals safe?

MAGNAY: Well, this is the thing, the relocation is just one part of a much more complex problem. You have the communities around the parks in South

Africa, in Mozambique also, where poachers are being recruited for whom the value of one rhino horn is so much more than any other work they could do.

Then you have the criminal syndicates who are driving this trade who you have to infiltrate and break down. And then, of course, you have the

demand in Asia. And the was an astonishing survey conducted by some conservation groups in 2012 of around 1,000 consumers in China asking them

whether they knew that rhino horn was actually illegal. And only about half of them recognized that.

So I think to reduce demand in China there has to be a massive awareness campaign, a massive drive perhaps through social media. And you're seeing

quite a lot of cultural diplomacy in the form of NBA stars, pop stars coming over here to look at the impacts of poaching and try and bring that

message back to consumers in Asia.

But it really has to be enforced upon them. And there are question marks over whether there really is the political will right from the very top to

stop this trade, this illegal trade, Kristie.

LU STOUT: You know, such an important campaign to keep these animals safe. Diana Magnay, we thank you for your reporting and take care.

Now you're watching News Stream. Still to come on the program, a journey back in time through the winding corridors of a Japanese Machiya. We'll

take you to Kyoto for a look at a unique architectural heritage that is making a comeback after decades of neglect.

(COMMERCIAL BREKA)

LU STOUT: As the center of Japanese culture for centuries, Kyoto is the proud keeper of stunning architectural gems. But until recently,

traditional wooden dwellings known as Machiya were largely overlooked. That may be changing now. Paula Newton meets two of Kyoto's preservation

pioneers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The journey through this home is haunting, the ruin relentless. This is a traditional Japanese

Machiya house, now abandoned. And if you look here where the daylight touches the decay, you get a glimpse of all that was lost in this home.

But for a full picture of the loss, we meet Megumi Hata at her Kyoto home.

Ms. Hata has lived in her Machiya all her life, like 13 generations before her. And she and her family have meticulously preserved it.

MEGUMI HATA, MACHIYA PERSERVATIONIST (through translator): This house is rare and very traditional, and therefore our identity as Japanese has been

nurtured in this house. When I think about that I would say this is the most amazing part of this house, and this is what I love most about this

house.

NEWTON: That enduring love of old homes is not universal in Japan. In fact, there is more financial incentive to destroy rather than preserve.

The structure of your home has very little market value after a few decades. It's the land that's prized, not the architecture. Although,

among young Japanese, there are signs that's changing.

GEOFFREY MOUSSAS, ARCHITECT: You have to only walk on the floor joists here and hang on to the walls, I guess.

NEWTON: All right, hang on to the wall.

I don't where you'd ever get the idea you can restore this.

MOUSSAS: This is the limit. I would -- most people would not renovate this.

NEWTON: But architect Jeffrey Mousas knows he can. For more than a decade now, Mousas, an American, has been working to restore as many as 30

Machiya, first learning the art form by working with Japanese carpenters.

MOUSSAS: As one housing type has been developing over 1,200 years. My philosophy is to keep the old and of course preserve that, but we can't

just keep the old and live in the past. So we have to -- the combination of new and old and how you do that is a little bit -- well, the balance is

very important.

NEWTON: To get a better idea of what's possible, we're heading to one of Geoff's finished Machiya restorations. On the way, we pass the beauty of

Old Kyoto, the inspiration of these projects.

We arrive at the renovated Machiya. And the reveal is a refined modern fusion.

MOUSSAS: You could take something that was going to be thrown away, basically, and creating something that people admire, something that people

appreciate, sorry.

NEWTON: And Mrs. Hata reminds us why it's worth saving.

HATA (through translator): All the struggles and the efforts of past generations convinces me I must do all I can to preserve this house.

NEWTON: There are signs some are heeding her advice, whether preserving a precious Machiya or transforming it for another purpose, like this dramatic

Kendo (ph) shop.

Mr.s Hata says if we view our lives as software, something forever changing, this traditional architecture is the hardware, the very structure

that gives Japanese life its foundation.

Paula Newton, CNN, Kyoto, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: A stunning report.

And that is News Stream. I'm Kristie Lu Stout. But don't go anywhere, World Sport is up next with Alex Thomas in London.

END