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Megaupload Founder to be Extradited to U.S.; Amnesty International Questions Russia's Targets in New Report; Iraq Begins Assault on Ramadi; Is VR the Next Revolution in Video Capture? Aired 8:00a-9:00a ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:22] ANDREW STEVENS, HOST: I'm Andrew Stevens in Hong Kong. Welcome to News Stream.

Amnesty International says Russian airstrikes in Syria have killed at least 200 civilians, and in some cases there were no obvious military

targets nearby.

Rescued after being buried for almost three days, a remarkable survival story in the tragic landslide in China.

And infamous internet tycoon Kim Dotcom loses his appeal against extradition in the U.S. where he could face charges of copyright

infringement.

We begin with a new report from Amnesty International accusing Russia of killing hundreds of civilians in its Syrian air campaign. The human

rights group says some of those Russian airstrikes may amount to war crimes.

Now, the report focuses on six attacks in Homs, Idlib and Aleppo between September and November. It says the strikes killed at least 200

civilians and caused massive destruction to homes and to medical facilities.

Well, Moscow has said that its forces are only targeting terrorists. Now, senior international correspondent Matthew Chance has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The report puts Russia's air war in Syria under close scrutiny, focusing on

six bombing raids, on areas where Amnesty says there were no obvious military targets nearby.

The human rights group says it's interviewed eyewitnesses, doctors and aid workers in Syria, who testified that Russian bombs struck homes, a

hospital, a market, even a mosque, indicating what the report calls "serious failures" by Russia to respect international humanitarian law.

Russian officials have not commented on the Amnesty report but in the past have rejected allegations that its raids in Syria have killed

civilians, calling its airstrikes "pinpoint" and "effective."

In a recent interview in Syria, a Russian defense official told CNN it is ISIS and other Islamist groups that are being struck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Every day we show you how Russian aviation is fighting international terrorism, destroying by

infrastructure in Syria.

CHANCE (voice-over): The Amnesty report also highlights what it says is Russian news of internationally banned cluster munitions and unguided

bombs in Syria. Their indiscriminate and disproportionate use, the report says, should be stopped

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: Matthew Chance reporting there.

Now, the advance on the ISIS-held town of Ramadi is well underway this hour. The strategically important town is just west of the capital,

Baghdad, and the country's military says its forces backed by air support from the U.S.-led coalition, are pushing in on

the city that fell into ISIS' hands back in May.

The Iraqi offensive on Anbar's provincial capital also extending to the skies over the province. State media reporting that F-16 fighter jets

have apparently struck ISIS positions in the western province of Anbar and inthe northern province of Hawijah (ph).

Now, eight senior ISIS leaders were reportedly killed.

Well, let's turn now to southern Afghanistan where government forces appear to be in a losing fight. A police official says the Sangin district

of Helmand province has been overrun by the Taliban. And police and army forces say they're running out of weapons and supplies.

A small contingent of British troops is providing support for the province, but it is limited to an advisory role only.

Well, Sangin is highly contested because it is important both strategically and economically.

it's a key location in Afghanistan's poppy and opium trade and links the provincial capital with areas to the north.

Before NATO handed security operations back to Afghan forces a year ago, British and American forces had struggled for years to hold on to that

area.

And the British have suffered heavy casualties there.

Well, for the latest on the battle for Sangin, let's bring in CNN's Alexandra Field now

Alex, first of all, is there any help now getting through to these government forces trapped in Sangin, because they've been asking for some

time.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, the central government says, in fact, that there is reinforcement for the forces who are in Sangin

and these are people who have been pleading very publicly for days for help saying that they're running out of food, that they're running out of

ammunition and looking to the central government for help while saying that they weren't getting the

kind of support that any need.

But the defense minister is now saying that the Afghan security forces have had successes in the

Helmand province in their fight against the Taliban, that the fighting does continue in Sangin, that broader operations are planned there.

He says that this is a young army, of course, that needs maturing, that they do not have the resources they had when they had the support of

the coalition, which was involved in the security operations in that country until they pulled out a year ago, turning over the security

operations.

But the defense minister says he is expressing pride in the work that the army is doing and

saying that they are defending strongly.

Now, this stands in stark contrast, of course, to what the Taliban is saying. They've also put out a statement saying the fact that a NATO team,

which involves some limited number of British troops, has arrived in Helmand province to act in an advisory role is a sign of the weakness of

the central government, of the illegitimacy of the government in Kabul, and the lack of support that it has from the

people.

The defense minister, of course, roundly refuting that saying that while more work needs to be

done in Sangin to fend off the Taliban, that he is optimistic that that will happen there.

Of course, this does, again, come, Andrew, after days of hearing from locals on the ground there about an increasingly tense and dire situation

in which they said that Taliban had already taken over much of the Sangin district, a critical district. They said the only parts of Sangin that

were not under control of the Taliban were a police chief's building and also another

compound used by one of the Afghan national army's battalions.

[08:06:52] STEVENS: Yeah, the reports make it sound like they completely surrounded government forces in Sangin, Alex.

Now, given the fact that Helmand province has always been restive, has always been a stronghold, if you like, for the Taliban, the government is

now saying it thinks it can actually sweep the Taliban out of the entire province or just out of that Sangin area?

FIELD: What they are saying is that they are -- that they have broader operations that are planned there, that they've had some successes

in Helmand and that they are continuing to take this fight in Sangin where it is so critical because, of course, Sangin is this essential part of

Helmand province.

What you've heard from the locals there is if the Taliban is successful and effectively overrunning Sangin entirely, that all of Helmand

province could then fall to the Taliban, and that's where you run into some very key problems because, Andrew, as you pointed out, this is an area

that's important economically, because it is an opium center, also strategically because of its roots to the

provincial capital.

If this center did, in fact, fall to the Taliban, the Taliban would be able to take over these trade routes.

It's also, of course, significant because this is an area that British and U.S. forces, coalition forces, fought for so long to defend. It's also

an area where more than 100 British servicemen lost their lives. So this is an important fight.

The defense minister certainly not ceding any ground here, but saying this is very much an

ongoing fight and that the Afghan National Army would continue to do everything that it could do to fight against the Taliban and, of course, we

do know that that small number of British troops is deployed, they are not there in a combat capacity, but they will serve in an advisory role.

And that was critical just a few months ago when the Taliban overran Kunduz. We saw U.S. military advisors acting in an advisory role and also

providing cover from the air, eventually they were able to beat back the Taliban from that city, Andrew.

STEVENS: All right, Alexandra, thanks very much for that, Alexandra Field joining us live from Seoul.

Now, still to come here on News Stream, a bright spot in a horrible disaster. A man buried under landslide debris for 60 hours in southern

China has been found alive.

Plus, the legal troubles aren't over for the Putin critic and the former oil tycoon Mickhail Khordokovsky.

Why the Kremlin is demanding his arrest.

And Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, could soon find himself in a U.S. court. Why his home country of New Zealand is forcing him to face the

music.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:12:05] STEVENS: Welcome back.

A story of hope out of China today. Rescuers have been pulling survivors from the rubble of a

landslide three days after it hit the city of Shenzhen. The first survivor was a 19-year-old man found under a collapsed building at the city

industrial park. He had been buried for more than 60 hours. A second person who was rescued later succumbed to their injuries and died.

Chinese state media report four more bodies have also been recovered, more than 70 people remain missing.

Let's head straight to Shenzhen now. And our Matt Rivers joins us live with more on the rescue efforts. And that really is a miraculous tale

of finding someone alive after so long, Matt.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Andrew, that's absolutely right, especially when you consider how he survived. State

media here in China reporting late in the day today here local time that that man actually fell when that building collapsed, he fell into an air

pocket that was created inside that air pocket, miraculously, there was a bag of snacks, believe it or not, that he was actually able to eat over the

last several days.

That, plus some serious mental toughness, you would imagine, helped him survive.

But, you know, with that good news, there are still dozens and dozens of people still unaccounted for here in Shenzhen. And that makes life for

their family members very, very difficult.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE0

RIVERS: This was a rescue 67 hours in the making.

Rescuers pull the 19-year-old Tian Zeming (ph) out of rubble that buried him alive.

Chinese state media said he had been trapped for nearly three days after this Sunday morning.

After that landslide, his rescue was as improbable as it was joyful, but for so many others, the

search goes on. Dozens gather nearby at a shelter, awaiting word on family members still trapped.

He Weisheng still stunned by what he witnessed.

HE WEISHENG, FAMILY MEMBER MISSING IN LANDSLIDE (through translator): I saw our house collapsing on the way home, and I simply lost the power to

walk. My mind completely went blank.

RIVERS: Nearly his entire family -- his parents, his wife, his three children, the

youngest, a girl just 2 years old, were inside their apartment when the pile of earth and construction debris collapsed. They remain unaccounted

for. He now waiting on a miracle.

WEISHENG (through translator): Right now it doesn't matter if my family is dead or alive, I just want them to be pulled out. I just want to

see them.

RIVERS: As the hours tick by, the chances of his family being rescued dwindle. The mud is dense and tens of feet deep. It will take weeks to

clean it up.

WEISHENG (through translator): Right now there is only me and my brother left in my family. I have no plans for the future.

[08:15:04] RIVERS: He is remarkably stoic in all this, supported by those around him. His friend Yu Haitao went to the scene of the landslide,

his feet still caked with mud. He's upset, wondering who to blame and how this could happen.

YU HAITAO, SHENZHEN RESIDENT (through translator): We anxiously wait for any updates from the authorities. We give them our trust. If they

can't be trusted, who else can we turn to?

RIVERS: For He, blame will come later. For now, he's numb.

WEISHENG (through translator): Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I don't know what to think right now. I just want to see my

family.

RIVERS: And just like any family man, he shows off pictures of his kids with pride -- smiles, moments he prays he'll share once again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIVERS: And there really only exists hope for those families that we spoke to today, but they know many people are well aware of the reality

that as these hours go by, the chances of their loved ones being returned home safely get smaller and smaller -- Andrew.

STEVENS: I'm sure they're holding on to the fact that there was that miracle we have seen today, Matt. Maybe there is another miracle.

I just want to ask you, though, about the investigation because this was a man-made disaster. This was a pile several stories high of mud and

debris in Shenzhen. What's happening with the investigation into that side of this disaster?

RIVERS: Well, the new piece of information that came out today about the investigation in state media is that a senior-level official with the

company that was in charge of maintaining this large pile of waste has been detained by local police.

Now, exactly why he was detained, whether there will be charges forthcoming or whether he is just a cooperating witness, we're not sure.

What we do know, though, is that in accidents like these, industrial accidents, the Chinese government is usually very quick to try

and point the finger of blame at someone, and that could be what we're seeing here in the beginning stages of this investigation.

STEVENS: OK, Matt, thanks very much. Matt Rivers joining us live from Shenzhen there.

Now, two people have been wounded in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem and another was shot. Israel's police spokesman says it happened at the

Jaffa Gate of the old city earlier on Wednesday.

Oren Liebermann joins us now with details from Jerusalem. Oren, what else can you tell us

about this?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATINOAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Andrew, this started with moments of panic right outside the Jaffa Gate of the old city

of Jerusalem, which is a very significant spot right now, because the Jaffa Gate leads into the Christian quarters. So, just a day before Christmas

Eve, it is a very busy spot at this time of year.

Police say two attackers approached right at the entrance of the gate, and they say stabbed Israelis there. Two Israelis were seriously injured,

one more was moderately injured. Police say security forces at the scene opened fire, shot and killed one of the attackers at the scene, the other

was taken to the hospital where he later died.

Now, as you pointed out, of those three that were injured, two, police say, were injured with a knife, with stab wounds, the other was injured

with gunfire. And police are looking at what appears to be the very real possibility that that gunfire came from Israeli security forces responding

to the attackers at the scene.

Police have blocked off that area for a while shortly after the attack.

I'm not sure if it remains blocked off at this point. But as I said, a very important area at this time of year because it leads right into the

Christian quarter just a couple days here before Christmas -- Andrew.

STEVENS: Oren, thanks very much.

Oren Lieberman in Jerusalem.

You're watching News Stream. Still ahead on the show , it's one of the newest technologies to shake up the gaming industry. We'll take you

inside the world of virtual reality. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:30] STEVENS: Well, a misty evening here in Hong Kong. That's if you're looking across Victoria Harbor to a fun fair which has been set

up on the shore.

Welcome back, you're watching News Stream.

And speaking of people having fun, get ready to see more of this sort of thing: people wearing big virtual reality headsets.

VR is set to come back in a big way in 2016. Sony, HTC and Oculus are all set to release headsets. Facebook paid $2 billion for Oculus last

year, betting that VR will help people experience media in a whole new way.

Well, as part of CNN's New Yube series, our Brian Stelter went to take a look for himself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It could be the biggest leap in capturing our world since the photograph. This is

virtual reality.

Now, when you hear VR, you might imagine people are wearing headsets, turning their heads and waving their arms. You might think it's a joke.

But when you actually see it, when you try it, you stop laughing.

All around the world, engineers are fine-tuning technology that immerses you in the 3D, 360-degree experience. Giants like Facebook are

betting big that we'll all be strapping goggles to our head and flailing around in the next few years.

And Oculus is the company leading the way.

PALMER LUCKEY, FOUNDER, OCULUS: I think that virt rea (ph) has the potential to be most connecting technology of all time.

STELTER: Twenty-three-year-old Palmer Luckey created Oculus as a teenager working in his parents' garage.

LUCKEY: I got into the VR not because I was looking for the next likely financial return, but because I was a science fiction enthusiast

too, entrench by the idea of virtual reality and using VR, particularly for videogames.

STELTER: In 2012, Luckey used Kickstarter to try to keep his product afloat.

LUCKEY: Make a pledge and help us change gaming forever.

STELTER: And he ended up raising nearly $2.5 million.

LUCKEY: We're one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns at the time, not because a bunch of Hollywood studios or a bunch of electronic

mega corporations came in and said, "This is our next feature. We're going to use the sell people new TVs." It's because people said, "We really want

that."

STELTER: Last year, Facebook bought his startup for $2 billion.

MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, FACEBOOK: I've seen VR before, but this was, by far, the best experience I'd ever seen.

It was just like teleporting to some other place just by putting on a headset.

I was seeing the next great technology platform that's going to define the way that we all connect in the future.

STELTER: Hold on. Give me a minute here.

If you're like me, hearing other people talk about virtual worlds, living inside goggles is not very compelling. That's actually an implicit

problem of VR, and reporting about it, too. It's the "see it to believe it" problem.

So, this is the best I can show you. Watch the first time I ever played games inside Oculus Rift.

[08:25:20] (on camera): It's like being in a child's play room. Knocking on the ball. Oh, drop off my hand.

Someone firing at me, I'm firing back. So I can point at the other player that's -- where are you? Are you next door?

So, I'm grabbing a slingshot and as I pull it back with my other hand, it's actually really hard to put into words.

(voice-over): Palmer has had more experience choosing the right words.

(on camera): How do you describe virtual reality?

LUCKEY: Virtual reality has that power to really allow you to do anything -- anything you can imagine doing in the real world, you can do,

plus the whole set of experiences that are not possible in the real world.

STELTER (voice-over): Right now, VR is mostly about gaming. But you can hear where Luckey is going with this. Movies in VR, live news events in

VR, even face to face meetings.

LUCKEY: You can take people from opposite sides of the world and put them into the same virtual room together. Once you can do that well enough,

you really remove the need for people to travel and burn tons of jet fuel to get around the world. You remove the need to have massive conferences

where you expend huge resources just to get people in the same room talking to each other.

STELTER: So, will his dream come true? Well, Oculus is not the only player in this virtual space. Sony has Project Morpheus, HTC has Vive, and

then there's Microsoft's HoloLens, VR startup Magic Leap, and Google Cardboard, a cheap headset that uses your cell phone as a display.

But virtual reality doesn't always come cheap. The Oculus Rift system is expected to cost $1,500.

LUCKEY: I think our biggest challenge is driving the quality up and the cost down.

STELTER: The public might reject VR the same way it rejected 3D TV. But Oculus has the potential to change the very definition of a screen,

because when you're looking at virtual reality, you forget you're looking at the screen at all.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: Fascinating stuff there from Brian Stelter.

And also do mention 23-year-old selling his company for $2 billion to Facebook.

And Brian will have plenty more on how developments in VR, virtual reality, can transform

our everyday lives. That's coming up on World Business Today with Maggie Lake in about 30 minutes or so from now.

So 2015 has been the year of the missing corporate executive in China. Time and again without warning, some of the country's richest business

titans have gone off the grid. Ahead, details of one executive who's back at work after an extended hiatus.

Plus, it looks like internet titan Kim Dotcom will have to face the feds in the U.S.over copyright infringement charges. Details of his case

coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(HEADLINES)

[08:32:57] STEVENS: The Hong Kong CEO of one of China's top brokerages has reappeared. Yim Fung who runs the Guotai Junan brockerage

had been out of contact for more than a month.

It turns out he was, quote, assisting in certain investigations carried out by mainland authorities, end quote. Yim himself was not under

investigation.

That clinical statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange just a sfew sentences long is the only

explanation given as to that disappearance. It's virtually identical to the one issued by China's biggest

private conglomerate, Fosun Interantional, when its founder Guo Guangchang reappeared in mid-December after he went missing for 36 hours.

Now, assisting with the investigation was the same official reason given for the disappearance of Zhang Yun. He's the president of the

Agricultural Bank of China, that is the world's third biggest bank by assets.

He disappeared in November. The bank announced his resignation without any further explanation in early December.

Now, the common thread, apart from an extreme lack of information, is that all of these rich and powerful men were caught up in Beijing's ongoing

corruption crackdown and its hunt for the people who they think are responsible for the stock market rout this summer.

All chilling examples of a country promoting capitalism, but resorting to heavy-handed police action when things go wrong.

now, russia has issued an arrest warrant for one of president putin's fiercest critics, Mikhail Khordorkovsky. And Russian officials accuse the

former oil tycoon of organizing the murder of a politician in 1998.

Khordorkovsky denies those charges. He was released from prison just two years ago after serving ten years on a tax evasion and money laundering

conviction.

Well, since he was freed, he spent most of his time in Switzerland and London.

A New Zealand court has ruled that internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom along with three of

his former associates can be extradited to the United states. And that's where all four face criminal charges.

Kim Dotcom is the millionaire founder of Megaupload, a file-sharing site that became

one of the Internet's largest bastions of pirated content. Well, U.S. officials have tried for nearly four years to get the internet bigwig back

to the U.S.

Anna Burns-Francis reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA BURNS-FRANCIS, TVNZ: Kim Dotcom arriving at court today hoping for a

Christmas miracle. You've waited a long time for this. What do you think about the timing, right before Christmas?

KIM DOTCOM, FOUNDER, MAGE UPLOAD: It's interesting. Let's see what Santa has in store.

BURNS-FRANCIS: But it wasn't Santa, rather Judge Nevin Dawson who delivered the bad news.

NEVIN DAWSON, JUDGE: This court finds that respondents are all eligible for surrender on all counts in the superseding indictment.

BURNS-FRANCIS: The disappointment clearly visible on his faces of Dotcom and his co-accused Braun van der Kolk, Mathias Ortmann and Finn

Batato whose wife could be heard sobbing in the background.

Dotcom was upbeat outside court, filing an appeal before he had even left.

DOTCOM: What I'd like to say is that this is not the last word on the matter. We have filed an appeal. I'm still on bail. And we'll go through

the whole process until the very end.

BURNS-FRANCIS: Wife Mona was there for support but made a hasty exit.

Today's decision, the culmination of four years of legal battle.

The argument, whether Dotcom and his cohorts were responsible for copyright infringement for

content posted to his Megaupload empire, at one time the biggest file sharing locket in the world. Megaupload accounted for 4 percent of all

internet traffic.

But it was also host to millions of pirated movies, music, TV shows and computer software.

Lawyers acting for the U.S. told the hearing Mega was a simple scheme of fraud.

CHRISTINE GORDON, PROSECUTOR: They deliberately attracted copyright infringing material to their websites, they deliberately preserved it,

deliberately took steps to profit from that material and made vast sums of money.

BURNS-FRANCIS: Those vast sums now frozen, or spent on legal fees, a battle now taking a toll.

GRANT ILLINGWORTH, LAWYER: They are living under the shadow of extradition to a

country in which they have never lived. They've never been residents of that country, and they're going to be tried rigorously if this extradition

process is upheld.

BURNS-FRANCIS: Finn Batato says he can't afford to fight his case. He's the only one without a lawyer.

FINN BATATO, DEFENDANT: I'm a bit disappointed, obviously.

BURNS-FRANCIS: But it's not the end. Justice Minister Amy Adams gets the final say of extradition and says she won't even consider it until

after any future legal action.

Anna Burns-Francis, One news.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: He's larger than life on the U.S. political stage, and now he's got an even bigger lead. A new poll shows that U.S. presidential

hopeful Donald Trump is pulling ahead even further in the Republican side of the race for president. The CNN/ORC poll has Trump way ahead of his

rivals, now at 39 percent.

His approval rating is more than the other three top contenders combined. And nearly half of voters polled say they believe the real

estate mogul is the best candidate to help Republicans win back the White House in 2016.

Unstoppable at this stage.

Now, make a wish upon a shooting star, or maybe not. After the break, find out what this fireball is. Here's a clue, it's not a falling star.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:22] STEVENS: Welcome back.

We now know what caused a mysterious sight in the skies over the western U.S. On Tuesday night, people in Las Vegas, Nevada, reported

seeing a large meteorlike object. It was also spotted over California. According to U.S. strategic command, it was actually space

debris left behind by R russian rocket.

So what other space junk is out there? CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Fascinating story absolutely when you think about what occurred across the skies of the western United

States. And you don't have to look up too far. You look up into the skies and what rotates and orbits our planet, we know some 22,000 space

debris or space objects that are loose out there or orbiting our planet, some the size of just apples, others as large as full-scale rocket engines

that are defunct, that are orbiting our planet on a large scale, even million mores that are considerably smaller -- a speck of paint

potentially, even some screws that are loose across that region that are orbiting our planet.

But they eventually all have to come down. 70 percent of our planet is water. So when they do come down, they typically land in the oceans.

But when they land above a surface of land, that's when you have a lot of people talking about it.

I want to talk about how this all goes about, because with meteors that eventually become meteorites where they impact the Earth, they come in

at a far faster rate, somewhere on the order of 250, maybe 260,000 kilometers per hour as they streak across the sky. It's very short-lived.

It comes in at an oblique angle.

Now, you bring in space debris, space junk, whether it be satellite or parts of satellites, they come in typically more of a plane angle, flat

angle, at about zero degrees. They come in far slower rates, 20,000, 25,000 kilometers per hour. And you see them skirt across the sky at a far

slower rate as well, so you can see this for a long time. And people, when they see it, they get very excited, and that's why this was such a big hit,

especially on social media.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: Exciting indeed. At a mere 25,000 kilometers per hour.

That is News Stream. Thanks for joining me. I'm Andrew Stevens. Don't go anywhere. World Sport with Alex Thomas is just ahead.

END