Return to Transcripts main page
NEWS STREAM
71 Migrants Found Dead In Truck Along Austria-Hungary Border; South Korea-U.S. Hold Joint Military Exercises; Apple Sends Cryptic Invite for September 9; 80 Drowned Off Coast of Libya; After Roller Coaster Week, Most Stock Markets End On High Note; NASA Issues New Warning on Sea Level Rise. Aired 8:00a-9:00a ET
Aired August 28, 2015 - 8:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00] FREDERIK PLEITGEN, HOST: ...dead in the back of a truck in Austria believed to be Syrians looking for a better life outside their war
torn country.
Shanghai stocks end a bruising week on a high. We look back at the turmoil that gripped the markets.
And 10 years on, we'll gauge the lasting impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
Unmistakable signs of desperation can be seen across large parts of Europe as thousands of refugees continue risking their lives in hope of a
better future. In Austria, police say the bodies of 71 people found inside an abandoned truck are believed to be Syrian refugees. They suspect a
Bulgarian/Hungarian trafficking ring may be involved.
Three people have been arrested in Hungary.
Meanwhile, off the coast of Libya an aid group tells CNN more than 80 people have drowned and 18 are still missing after two boats capsized in
the past two days there.
Nearly 200 people have been rescued in that operation.
Also, a Swedish coast guard vessel operating on behalf of the European Union border agency found another large fishing boat packed with migrants,
they managed to save 439 people, but more than 50 were found dead below deck.
Let's start with the latest developments in Austria. Our own Phil Black joins me right here in London. And Phil, it's just a tragic events
that happened there in Austria. What's the latest you have for us?
PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, we've been hearing from the Austrian officials, Fred. And what's clear is this is even worse,
this terrible incident even worse than they suspected.
When they first found this truck, opened it up, saw all of these dead bodies inside, they thought it was in the region of 50. They now say today
71 people in total, you can tell that the Austrian officials were clearly disturbed...
PLEITGEN: It took them almost a day to really open the trucks. It -- to sift through what was actually there. It must have been horrifying.
BLACK: Indeed, that's right.
So, they've now moved the truck. They've moved it to a customs base where they've started to unload the contents. They've done this official
body count. 71 people in all. And they've also announced a breakdown of just who they found inside. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANS PETER DOSKOZIL, CHIEF OF THE BURGERLAND POLICE (through translator): 71 people who were killed because of this tragedy, 59 of
those people are men, there are four children and the others are females. There's a 2-year-old girl among them. And then three and eight and 19 year
old boys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACK: So, some very young children there, Fred, in that terrible find.
They say they found a Syrian travel document. They were no doubt dealing with refugees. They clearly believe that they are Syrian. They
ruled out Africa in terms of the origin of these people.
And I guess not surprisingly what they believe is that these people simply suffocated. And if you look at the size of that truck, and try to
imagine 71 people crammed in there, a terrible end to what was at least...
PLEITGEN: It's still quite a large vehicle if you look at the ones that usually they find refugees in, isn't that right?
BLACK: That's what the Austrian authorities have said is that this was an unusual shipment from what they're used to. They're used to smaller
numbers of people being moved by people trafficers in smaller vehicles.
In this size, yes, a relatively large refrigerated vehicle, but not one designed to carry 71 people for an extended period of time.
PLEITGEN: Talk to me about the investigation, because it's bound to be quite a difficult one, also because the European borders are open, but
they have arrested several people.
BLACK: They have. They tracked the vehicle back to Hungary. They initially picked up, we were told by the Austrians, seven people. Some of
those people were released. What we do know in this latest comes from the Hungarian police, they say four people are still in custody. Three from
Bulgaria, one Afghan citizen as well.
Now according to the Austrians they say that they think they've got the owner of the vehicle and a couple of people who were acting as drivers.
They think that these are very low level operatives in a much bigger, well organized people smuggling operation with roots both in Bulgaria and
Hungary itself.
PLEITGEN: Yeah, certainly a very lucrative, very dark trade that's going on. Thank very much.
Phil Black joining me here in the studio.
And let's turn now to the troubling situation off the coast of Libya. Our own senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is tracking the
latest from Rome.
And Ben, it seems as though in the past couple of months, you've had to report on way too many of these tragic event. What happened this time?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we understand is between Wednesday evening and this morning that there were
two boats went down off the coast of Libya on the western edge of the country near a town calls Zuara (ph) which is frequently used by people
trying to reach Europe.
Now, we understand from Muhammad Misrati (ph) who is the spokesman for the Libyan Red Crescent, that until now they've been able to recover 89
bodies of people from those two boats. And in addition to that, 198 survivors.
Now the numbers are not at all clear at this point. There are others who are suggesting that as many as 200 people may have drowned as a result
of the capsizing of these two boats. And that's in addition to another incident that occurred Wednesday when a Swedish coast guard vessel came
upon a large fishing vessel, that's the one you mentioned where you found in the hold of that ship 52 people dead who appeared to have suffocated
down in that hold.
We understand that the Libyan coast guard is still involved in a rescue operation off of Zuara (ph), but it's important to keep in mind that
the Libyan coast guard is very poorly equipped, very poorly trained. If these boats had been just a little further off the Libyan coast, perhaps
the Italian navy and other European ships could have come to their rescue, but in this case it appears that the rescue mission is in the hands of the
Libyan coast guard -- Fred.
PLEITGEN: And Ben when you see those boats so crammed full of people, it's almost unimaginable that anybody would even think to try and cross the
Mediterranean with something like that.
Now, the EU has been trying to increase its presence on the Mediterranean Sea, but it still seems as though their response is very much
inadequate right?
WEDEMAN: Well, what we've seen in a ramping up of the European effort in the Mediterranean. Certainly since this spring when you started to have
one catastrophe at sea after another. But at the end of the day, the problem isn't really how many European ships are patrolling the
Mediterranean, the problem goes back to countries like Eritrea where there's open ended military service that can go on for decades that people
are fleeing. The problem goes back to places like Aleppo in Syria where neighborhoods are hit on a regular basis by barrel bombs dropped by the
Assad regime. It goes back to Iraq where essentially you've had a country since the early 1980s has been racked by war and occupation and invasion,
that's where the real problem lies in these countries where there's corruption, tyranny, war, civil war and until those problems are solved
this -- what we're seeing, this so-called crisis is only going to get worse.
It may diminish somewhat on the Mediterranean during the winter months when the sea really becomes unpassable for the kind of rubber dinghies that
many of these migrants are using, but once the good weather comes again. You will see next year if these problems aren't solved, hundreds of
thousands of people yet again trying to get to Europe -- Fred.
PLEITGEN: Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't look as though many of them are set for a solution any time soon.
Thanks very much. Ben Wedeman there monitoring the situation in the capital of Rome.
Now, let's cross to another front in the migrant crisis, and that is Hungary. The UN says this week alone police there have intercepted more
than 2,000 people a day as they try to cross the border from Serbia. Arwa Damon was there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Exhausted children slumped on their parent' shoulders. Others like this 9-
year-old bravely declare that, no, he's not tired. He's from Deir ez-Zor Syria, one of his relatives from the ISIS capital.
"Famous," he jokes, "a dark humor is all I have left in the face of all they have endured."
Both in their homeland and much to their dismay, here.
"We tried to cross yesterday but the Hungarian police were being very harsh so we got scared," his uncle tells us.
As night falls, the human highway trudges on under the moonlight, on a journey to Western Europe. Waiting in groups, some will try to smuggle
through. Most hand themselves over to the Hungarian authorities, through one of the few openings in the fence.
This was not a demarcated border. Now a razor wire snakes its way throughout.
This Hungary's attempt to control the record flow of refugees, making it harder to evade capture, something many dread. Worried it will hinder
their asylum in Western Europe and fearful of dismal mistreatment by the Hungarians that they have been warned about, something many end up
experiencing firsthand.
Waiting for hours under the beating sun with little water, no shelter, and no translator that we saw to tell them what's going on. Eventually,
they are bussed here to the processing center, which takes a couple days, and is hardly set up to accommodate the numbers coming through.
On Wednesday, some of the refugees refused to be fingerprinted and were tear gassed by the Hungarian police when a scuffle broke out and,
according to the refugees, beaten.
Out the window at the bus station, these refugees who were there that day say, the four days under the rain in Macedonia was more bearable than
the torture we've been through here.
"It's a prison and they won't respond to us. They just say, go back it Syria."
(on camera): No one really told them exactly where they are going or what they are supposed to do when they get there so everyone is very
confused and asking us what's going on.
(voice-over): People just want to get out of Hungary, it is their gateway it Europe. But so far, their experience is more of a nightmare than
a dream.
Arwa Damon, CNN, Hungary.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[08:11:08] PLEITGEN: The European leaders are scrambling to find a solution to the growing crisis. At the western Balkans summit in Vienna on
Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said everyone there had been very much shaken by the news that 71 refugees died in that truck. She called
for swift action.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERKEL (through translator): It is now our responsibility to make sure that peace is once against reality in the relevant regions, but it is
also important with the background of our own historical experiences to give help and protection to those people whose lives are in danger wherever
they need it and when they are in a desperate situation. Everybody knows what the situation is in Syria and everybody knows what Syria's neighbors
are having to deal with. And that is why I believe that Europe as a rich continent is in a position to cope with the situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: And similar words from the EU's foreign policy chief who said it is essential to help the most vulnerable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FEDERICA MOGHEIRI, EU FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF: These people come to Europe and come to Europe for protection. They need Europe to protect them
and we need to live up to our standards of Human Rights and respect of international obligations to protect them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: And more refugees are still coming into Europe every day. According to a new UN report, the number of people who have crossed the
Mediterranean Sea this year alone has now surpassed 300,000. And 2,500 of them have died attempting that journey.
Still to come here on News Stream, China's stock markets have been blamed for this week's staggering volatility in global markets. After a
break, we look at what we can expect ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street.
Plus, Apple has dispatched cyptic invitations for an event next month. The tech giant is expected to roll out the new iPhone, but that's not all.
We'll break down the other features you can expect to see.
And NASA's data shows that the Earth's sea levels are rising fast. Later this hour, we have a live report explaining the science behind it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PLEITGEN: You're watching News Stream. And you're looking at an even more visual version of all the news we have for you.
We've already told you about the arduous journey refugees are taking across Europe through Hungary, and later the South Korea and U.S. military
drills.
But now to the markets. China's central bank has injected $9 billion into the financial system them, a move designed to keep the country's
commercial lenders flush with cash after a volatile week for global markets.
U.S. stock futures signal all three main indexes are poised for a lower open, as you can see there, on your screen when trading gets underway
in just over an hour from now.
This follows losses in Europe. Europe's heavy weight bench marks are mostly down in morning trade, although not by very much as you can see.
And in Asia, financial markets largely saw gains on the other hand. The Shanghai composite mounted a major rally in the second half of the week.
The main Chinese index closed up nearly 5 percent.
CNN's Asia-Pacific editor Andrew Stevens takes a look at how this week's volatility unfolded on the world's major exchanges.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[08:15:40] ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What a week. An absolute roller coast ending on Friday with this. Not too bad in
the end. The Shanghai Composite not surprisingly down the most, almost 8 percent lower. Hong Kong closing out the week by 3.5 percent down. But
Japan only 1.5 percent and the Australian markets actually finishing higher.
It could have been so much worse.
It all traces back to August 11 when China's central bank first allowed the yuan to slide in value. That worried investors the world over
with some speculating that this was a move to boost the economy through exports.
But then on Friday, August 21st...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A measure of manufacturing activity, that came in today, and that fell to its lowest level in 77 months.
STEVENS: To say it rattled the markets would be an understatement. Markets across Asia trading lower, but it was Shanghai the following week
where the real selling took place.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Asian markets suffering huge losses in Monday's session.
STEVENS: Europe followed suit with the DAX entering a bear market as panic selling intensified. And then it was over to Wall Street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now we're down 6 percent, more than 1,000 points here. Incredible rare, incredibly rare to see a move that brisk.
STEVENS: In the first few minutes, the Dow suffered its worst ever points loss in a single day. It did get slightly better, but the Dow still
recorded its worst day in four years.
Back in Asia, the next day the selling continued as Beijing apparently refused to intervene. The Shanghai market at this stage was down more than
15 percent in two days.
And then late on Tuesday, China's central bank moved to calm the markets. It cut interest rates and cut the amount of money banks must
hold, that in effect pumped millions of dollars, billions of dollars, into the economy.
But there was still little sign of a letup.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No relief and no respite after days of stomach churning losses.
STEVENS: A choppy day followed on Wednesday before finally some semblance of calm emerged on Thursday, helped no doubt by reports
suggesting that Beijing was throwing money at the problem, buying stocks once again to boost the market.
As the markets closed in Asia this Friday, investors breathed a collective sigh of relief, one of the most turbulent times on the market in
recent memory was finally over.
Remember, though, that if you'd bought into the Shanghai market a year ago, you'd still be sitting on a pretty tidy profit.
But even with policy makers in Beijing seemingly prepared to do whatever it takes to restore confidence and less fear, there is still more
volatility to come. For now, though, it's time to enjoy the weekend.
Andrew Stevens, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: But before we can enjoy the weekend, we'll give you some tech news here on News Stream. And Apple just sent out invitations for an
event on September 9, so want to mark that in your calendar? While the invitation only has the cryptic message, "Hey, Siri, give us a hint," the
timing suggests Apple is about to unveil its new iPhone 6s. Apple is expected to focus on force touch already used in their Apple Watches.
Force touch can tell the difference between light taps or a hard press on a touch screen.
And as the world waits to hear about Apple's updates to their flagship phone, the folks at Amazon seem prepared to quietly retire their
smartphone. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon sacked dozens of engineers from lab 126, the hardware department that built the Fire Phione.
The report cites sources familiar with the matter.
Amazon's Fire Phone flopped after its launch last year. It lost almost $170 million due to a huge inventory of unsold phones.
The Wall Street Journal says other lab 126 projects were also scaled back.
You're watching News Stream. Still to come, as family, friends and colleagues pay tribute to the two journalists gunned down in Virginia,
investigators are getting new insight into the shooter.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:23:49] PLEITGEN: Welcome back everyone. And communities across the U.S. state of Virginia held vigils in honor of the murdered journalist
Alison Parker and Adam Ward.
Now investigators also say they're starting to get more insight into the man who shot the two journalists on live TV. Our own Polo Sandoval has
this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This morning, evidence of an apparent getaway plan found inside 41-year-old Vester Flanagan's rental
car. A search warrant revealing that Flanagan had a wig, shawl, and sunglasses, along with multiple license plates, a to-do list, six clock
magazines, and a pistol. But the gunman was unable to evade police, shooting himself as they closed in on the side of a Virginia highway.
This is video of his one bedroom apartment obtained by NBC. You can see the refrigerator covered with photos of himself, possible warning signs
of the anger fueling his murderous attack on Adam Ward and Alison Parker live on air began surfacing over a decade ago. In 2000 he was fired from a
television station in northern Florida.
MARIE MATTOX, ATTORNEY FOR SHOOTER FROM 2000 LAWSUIT: I was concerned about just his mental status and whether he needed counseling.
[08:25:00] SANDOVAL: Then in 2013 he caused a disturbing scene being fired from WDBJ, lashing out at coworkers including victim Adam Ward.
JEFF MARKS, GENERAL MANAGER WDBJ: On the way out he handed a wooden cross to the news director and said "You'll need this."
SANDOVAL: Prior to being let go, internal documents show coworkers said he made them feel threatened and extremely uncomfortable. And the
stations' manager says Flanagan was asked to seek mental health assistance.
ANDY PARKER, FATHER OF KILLED JOURNALIST: I'm not saying let's take away guns. I'm just saying let's make it harder for people with mental
issues.
SANDOVAL: In an interview with NEW DAY's Chris Cuomo, Parker's father says gun regulations have to change.
PARKER: There has to be a way to force politicians that are cowards and in the pockets of the NRA to have sensible laws so that crazy people
can't get guns.
SANDOVAL: A father's crusade for stricter gun laws...
(SINGING)
SANDOVAL: ...met with a rally against gun violence at the WDBJ station Thursday night.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: Polo Sandoval reporting there.
And Alison Parker's boyfriend is also speaking out and has vowed to keep her memory alive. He talked to CNN's about he will remember the most
about her.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
CHRIS HURST, BOYFRIEND OF ALISON PARKER: She was so smart. She got college credit for doing calculus. She was a calculus tutor and was able to
get college credit for going to governor's school. She was on the robotics team. She was a nerd at heart, which belied her beauty. And she was the
most gorgeous woman I ever met inside and out.
And when it came to what she did for her job, she loved being a journalist, a journalist, not just a reporter, but a journalist, someone
who seeks the issues that are important and reports them fairly and accurately and truthfully and tries to find the emotion in stories and
tries to tell the human stories.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: And fountain lights in the city of Roanoke, Virginia will be lit up throughout the weekend to pay tribute to the two journalists.
And still to come here on News Stream, a worrying warning from NASA. We'll look at the latest data on rising sea levels.
And U.S. President Barack Obama visits New Orleans one decade after Hurricane Katrina tore through the city.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PLEITGEN: Welcome back. I'm Fred Pleitgen in London. You are watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines this hour.
Hungarian police now say four people have been arrested there in connection with the deaths of 71 people in Austria. Their bodies were
found in an abandoned truck along a highway on Thursday. It's believed they were Syrian refugees. Police say they suspect a Bulgarian/Hungarian
trafficking ring maybe involved.
An aid group says more than 80 people have drowned off the coast of Libya after two boats full of refugees capsized there. At least 18 people
are still missing, nearly 200 have been rescued. The migrants are believed to have been heading to Italy.
It appears that the man who gunned down two journalists in the U.S. state of Virginia had planned his getaway. The car he used was rented
three weeks before the shooting and according to a search warrant inside it, investigators found a wig, a hat, a shawl, sunglasses and a to-do list.
A gunman, of course, shot and killed himself during a police chase.
Hong Kong police have filed new charges against pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong. They accuse the 18-year-old of storming the government
headquarters last year sparking months of protests that were dubbed The Umbrella Movement.
And NASA has a new warning about rising sea levels, climate change and the impact on humanity. Our own meteorologist Chad Myers joins us now from
CNN Center in Atlanta. And Chad, what's different about this warning than other warnings that we've heard before, because it does strike quite an
alarm bell, doesn't it?
[08:31:26] CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It does, because the old warnings said by the end of his century one to three feet, with three being
on the upper edge. Now NASA is saying, wow, we've relooked at this, and we think three is now the bottom, three may be the baseline and it may go up
from here from what we've been seeing.
And there were a number of things that are happening here. Think about a thermometer, whether it's mercury or the alcohol, the red stuff
that goes in the thermometer. If you put it in something warmer, what happens to the alcohol or the mercury? It expands and it rises in the
thermometer.
If you warm the ocean, the ocean is going to expand. It is going to go up. Now it's not a tube, its much wider, but that's the issue.
So, right now we're already seeing the fastest rise of sea level, a foot or more here over the past century, out to the west.
Now this is the western part of the Pacific Ocean, because this is where the water is warming the fastest, this is where we're really seeing
that -- well, especially when we saw the La Nina and El Nino cycles, that's when really things began to happen.
So, where are the areas most at risk? The most population. The Philippines, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, of course the Maldives,
we've talked about that forever, how that entire island nation chain is so very close to the ground itself, to the ocean levels. There's just not
much else.
The problem here, Fred, is that let's say the ocean does rise three feet, one meter. What does that mean? It doesn't mean here that we're
going to lose three foot of shoreline. Because of the slope of the shoreline, the slope of the sand, you see it on the beach. But you can
also see it even on land.
If we begin to make this ocean rise half a meter at a time, another meter at a time, we are going to see this continue to erode the shoreline.
Guys, go ahead and put this in play, because it isn't working.
We're going to push the button here in my weather studio and we'll show where the water is going.
So, when you rise, let's say a half a meter, you lose 10 meters of land or more.
You make it go up more, you raise it a meter, three feet, then all of a sudden you've lost maybe in some spots a mile of coastline. And all of
sudden the water keeps going up and going up and you're going to get deeper and deeper and deeper.
And it's a matter of slope and how much we're actually going to lose some of this.
So, let's go back to the graphics here. Let's go back to the graphics and show you where this slope is the most important.
Of course here through the Maldives that's where the -- many of those islands aren't even above six feet, they're not even above two meters
altogether -- and all of these shorlines across all of these very populated countries.
Look at the Philippines at 13.6 million people that would be affected with a one meter sea rise -- Frederik.
PLEITGEN: Yeah, and Chad, one of the things that we always have to keep in mind as well, of course, is that even in those places where it'll
go in as you said, maybe a couple of hundred meters, a lot of the populations live on the coastlines. And NASA is telling countries prepare
for this, right?
MYERS: Correct. This is not about Arctic sea level ice that's floating, if that melts, that's not going to make the sea level rise.
Floating ice just sinks into the water and it stays.
This is about the melting ice caps, this is about the melting Greenland ice sheets all the ice that's above land, sitting on land that
would melt could actually make it go up more than of course one meter, could be five to six meters, but that could take centuries.
But, you know, we're not here just for ourselves, we have to keep this Earth safe for all of our kids and grandkids and so on.
[11:50:05] PLEITGEN: Absolutely. Thanks very much.
Chad Myers there at the CNN weather center in Atlanta.
And U.S. President Barack Obama toured New Orleans marking 10 years since Hurricane Katrina battered that city and five states along the U.S.
Gulf Coast.
He met with residents and commended the community for its resilience.
The storm killed more than 1,800 people and caused more than $100 billion of damage.
Now, the disaster exposed weaknesses in America's infrastructure and its emergency response system. After Katrina made landfall it was apparent
that New Orleans was not prepared for what was happening. CNN's Martin Savidge who was there at the time remembers how bad things became and what
he did to help the victims.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was in the Superdome when Katrina struck. A couple of days later I was here at the Convention Center. This
place was far worse. There were thousands and thousands of people and days in without any help. They were desperate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can't take this. We've been out here for there days.
SAVIDGE: They begged us to take them with us. They assumed that we were leaving every day.
CROWD: We want help!
SAVIDGE: We weren't. We never left the city.
And so when we told that to them, they then said, well, you've got to have some way of talking to people. We said, well, we have satellite
phones. And that's when people began tearing up pieces of paper or grabbing any cardboard or writing down telephone numbers. It was certain if someone
knew, that they would come and be rescued. And they gave me the numbers and begged that I'd call. And every evening when I got done with work and when
there were a few free moments, I'd start making my way down the list.
The first thing I realized is that nobody answers their phone anymore. It's always voicemail after voicemail. And the message I would always leave
was the same, you don't know me. I'm a reporter. I'm in New Orleans. I saw your uncle today in the Convention Center or I saw your aunt, I saw your
sister. They're OK.
One of the people actually wrote specifically what I was supposed to say on the phone call. And it goes, "please call my daughter Amethyst and
tell her her daddy, quote, ain't dead yet." I hung onto that note all these years, just because it was a reminder of how desperate people were.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: It's Martin Savidge reporting there.
And don't miss CNN's continuing coverage of the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Our own Anderson Cooper who, of course, was there when
the storm hit and reported for weeks from New Orleans after that. He hosts this powerful documentary called Katrina, the storm that never happened.
And it airs this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. right here in London. And after the break, thousands of U.S. and South Korean soldiers take part in military
drills this week. CNN was there. And we'll have that report coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PLEITGEN: Welcome back everyone.
And now to the Korean Peninsula where South Korea and the United States are wrapping up their annual military exercises. Our own Kathy
Novak got a firsthand view.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHY NOVAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not your average target practice. South Korean F-15 fighter jets that can take down a large
number of North Korean fighters at once, E 737s that can detect movement across the air space from the South Korean border, Syrian helicopters that
launch flares to evade North Korean missiles and drop off command dose to infiltrate enemy lines.
"Our soldiers are ready and able," says the Italian commander, "with the will and courage to fight against the enemy."
(on camera): These exercises bring together U.S. and South Korean fire power preparing to how to respond to a North Korean provocation and
signaling all-out war.
(MUSIC)
[08:40:26] NOVAK (voice-over): But two can play at this war game. At the Korean peninsula, North Korea invented the game, parading its 1.2
million active troops and weaponry of its own under the watchful and unforgiving eye of supreme commander, Kim Jong-Un. Anti-tank missiles
manned by loyal servants of the Korean Peoples' Army, submarine that Pyongyang claims can launch ballistic missiles. 70 percent of the fleet
deployed during the recent crisis. And artillery like the kind the U.S. says was aimed towards propaganda speakers on the border.
South Korea fired back. Watching this drill, it's clear these shells don't miss. Suggesting when dozens of South Korean rounds landed in an
empty field north of the DMZ that's exactly what they were aiming at.
They have the fire power but the game of war this in the peninsula is more about showing off the fire power than actually using it.
(on camera): This is not only a military exercise. It's a show. Members of the public have even been invited to watch the display.
(voice-over): Nothing like patriotic music to go with your show of fatal force and with every ground-shaking, eardrum-shattering boom of
artillery in a perfect "V" formation, enthusiastic applause from the crowd.
It may seem ridiculous, but it works.
"I felt really anxious living here," she says, "but after the performances, I'm not anxious at all. North Korea can't defeat us."
Satisfied theater-goers at a very dangerous show.
Kathy Novak, CNN, South Korea.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: And that's it for CNN News Stream. I'm Fred Pleitgen right here in London. But don't go anywhere, World Sport with Kate Riley is
next.
END
