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At Least 19 Killed in Japan Stabbing Attack; Violent Attacks Rattle Southern Germany; Day One of Democratic Convention Marked by Discord and Rousing Speeches; FBI Investigates Democratic Party E-Mail Hack; Turkey Crackdown on Coup Plotters Continues; California Wildfire Threatens Homes; Verizon Buying Yahoo!; Reservations over State of Rio Olympic Village; Indian Female Wrestlers Make it to Rio. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired July 26, 2016 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:12] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles.
Ahead this hour, 19 people stabbed to death in Japan. New details about the motive and the man behind the attack.
Germany on edge after four attacks in a week. Steady concern about potential security risks posed by a huge influx of refugees.
And Bernie Sanders calls for unity on the first day of the Democratic National Convention but it was the first lady, Michelle Obama, who's now making headlines.
Hello, and welcome to our viewers all around the world. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.
Japan is reeling after one of the worst mass killing in the country's history since World War II. At least 19 people at a center which cares for the disabled had been stabbed to death. Dozens of others were wounded. The attacker struck in the early hours of Tuesday morning and most would have been asleep at the facility in Sagamihara about 40 kilometers west of Tokyo.
Motoko Rich is the Tokyo bureau chief of "New York Times." She joins us now on the phone from Sagamihara.
Motoko, tell us what more do you know about the attacker and his motives and his links with this facility.
MOTOKO RICH, TOKYO BUREAU CHIEF, NEW YORK TIMES: We don't know much about his motives yet, but we do know that he is a former employee at the facility. He was employed there from 2012 until February of this year. It's not quite clear whether he was fired or left voluntarily, but there appear to have been some problems. He also wrote a letter to a member of the Japanese legislature earlier this year in which he talked about a desire to create a society in which it would be OK to euthanize the disabled. So it seems like he definitely had some kind of mental break about this issue.
He lived in a very bucolic mountain town, in a very large house where he was raised, but he lived by himself. All the neighbors are completely shocked. They said that he was a quiet and gentle man. He at one time wanted to be a teacher and went to college to study to be a teacher. We were just at the school where he did his student teaching and both the vice principal and his supervising teacher described him as very good with children. Very at ease with himself, confident and had no signs of any kind of depression or mental illness.
VAUSE: This is a facility which cares for the disabled. What more do we know about the patients and their kind of disabilities? Who would have been cared for at this facility?
RICH: Right. Well, we believe that it was a -- it was a facility that could house the maximum of about 160 residents and we believe that about 149 were resident at the time of the attack. The victims are nine men and 10 women and they were all patients there. We believe that many of them had mental illnesses, some of them had physical disabilities as well. They ranged in age from 18 to 70.
During the evening there would have been eight people on staff and a security guard. We don't know yet why he was able to rampage through the facility and kill and injure as many people as he did without anyone trying stop him.
The NHK was reporting and showing some pictures inside the suspect's car, which seemed to show some plastic ties. There's a suggestion that he may have tied up some of the employees in order to commit the crime, but we don't know those details yet.
VAUSE: OK. Motoko Rich for the "New York Times." Thank you for being with us and for all those details.
RICH: Thanks so much.
VAUSE: Police in Bangladesh say they've killed nine suspected militants in an early morning raid as SWAT teams surrounded an apartment block in the capital Dhaka. Police say the suspects responded by throwing a bomb. One of them was shot and injured. No officers were killed or hurt during the operation.
Still in Germany is reeling from a wave of attacks over the past few days. CNN's Atika Shubert has more on the violence which has rocked the region.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A train stabbing, a mass shooting, a machete attack and now a suicide blast. Four attacks in one week, three carried out by refugees, all in the Bavaria region. The attacks appear unrelated but Germany is on edge, says Bavaria's Interior minister.
JOACHIM HERRMANN, GERMAN INTERIOR MINISTER (Through Translator): Yes, this was also for me personally a very terrible week. As I think it was for most people in Bavaria the attack last Monday on the train in Wuerzburg, then the rampage in Munich Friday night, and now again an attack.
SHUBERT: The attacker in Ansbach was a 27-year-old Syrian refugee with a history of suicide attempts according to police. His asylum application had been rejected. Police say he packed a rucksack with explosives but also screws and ball bearings to inflict maximum damage. His target a local music festival. He tried to enter but had no ticket.
[01:05:02] Eyewitnesses told police he sat down in a nearby bar, leaned forward, then exploded. He killed only himself but wounded more than a dozen others, three seriously. Police searched his apartment looking for explosives and any links to terror groups.
(On camera): This is where he lived. It's about maybe half hour walk to where he ultimately died in that explosion that he set off. That is his apartment right there. And we have had a chance to speak to his neighbors, other refugees also staying here in Germany, and what they say is they didn't see any signs of him becoming extremist or even being worried in any way. They describe him as friendly and happy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was happy always. Always. And just one week ago, I saw him, he was happy.
SHUBERT: Did he ever mention any extremist jihadist groups like ISIS, like al Qaeda, anything like that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, he didn't. He told me that he -- he left his country because of the civil war in Syria. If he was extremist, he could have joined those groups in his homeland. Why he was here?
SHUBERT (voice-over): Across the street, German neighbors say it won't change their views on refuges, they welcome them but they are scared.
This neighbor said, "It doesn't change our opinion on refugees but we can't see what's going on in their minds. Most refugees are so friendly to us, but these events are just shocking and that scares us."
The Ansbach attack appears unrelated to the Afghan teenager who took an axe to train passengers in Wuerzburg or the Syrian refugee who hacked a woman to death with a machete in Reutlingen.
Police say the Munich shooter was a bullied teenager. German Iranian with no connection to any of the other attacks. But the growing number of victims from this string of violent attacks has Germans fearing even more violence.
Atika Shubert, CNN, Ansbach, Germany.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Bryan Dean Wright is a former CIA agent and he joins us now from Portland in Oregon. Bryan, good to have you with us. The suicide bomber in Germany was
apparently mentally unstable. So do you put him in the category as an ISIS true believer or just some kind of disturbed individual who latched on to the Islamic State because it was there?
BRYAN DEAN WRIGHT, FORMER CIA AGENT: I think what -- I think what you're seeing is three of the four individuals have apparently some tie to, if not the Islamic State, Islamic radicalism, and the German authorities, particularly the Ministry of Interior, has been very concerned about this Salafist or Wahili version of Islam creeping in to Germany, and I think that they will be exploring this very, very closely to see to what extent this version of Islam influenced these individuals.
You know, the young man of German and, you know, Afghani decent last Friday clearly seemed to be deranged mentally. But the others, it remains to be seen.
VAUSE: The German government says the risk for someone carrying out a terror attack is no greater among the refugee population than it is among the general population. Is that a fair assessment in your opinion?
WRIGHT: Well, I think that the data certainly bears that out, but I think that you can try to explain that to a victim's family, when these individuals wouldn't have been there otherwise before Merkel called those refugees to come to Germany, that's a really tough sell to sell to those families that their loved one is no longer here because of that immigration policy, that refuge policy.
VAUSE: Germany is yet to hit -- be hit with a massive terror attack like we have seen in Paris or Nice or Brussels. I guess you are sort of indicating that many in Germany in particular in the intelligence field believe that possibly it's only a matter of time?
WRIGHT: That's absolutely right. And I think that we've seen that from the UK, Spain, France. You know, Germany took in over one million individuals. Think about this for a moment, in terms of the refugee numbers. If 99 percent of them are good, which I think is a fair assessment. And just 1 percent are bad, that's 10,000 individuals that the German government, the military intelligence and law enforcement all have to track. And that is a very, very difficult number to wrap your head around. They are trying to do it, continue to work with international partners to do it. But you're not going to stop every attack.
VAUSE: Well, officials in Germany want to tighten security at airports and train stations. Is that mostly to show how effective is that in stopping the next attack?
WRIGHT: Well, I think that it is certainly a show of force and I think it shows the public that they are at least doing something, the degree to which it actually disrupts a plot, I'm skeptical. That being said, you know, the folks who carry out these attacks they do a degree of surveillance before they actually carry out their attacks. So it is possible that to a certain extent it can change some of these behaviors, some of these patterns. It may slow, it may delay, but it won't stop.
VAUSE: Bryan, thanks for being with us. Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA agent there in Portland, Oregon. Appreciate it.
WRIGHT: Thank you.
[01:10:10] VAUSE: A raucous first night for the Democratic National Convention. It wrapped up just a few hours ago. Thousands of delegates are in Philadelphia to nominate Hillary Clinton as their candidate for president. The official theme of the night, united together, but there have been deep divisions on display all day long.
Let's bring in CNN Politics reporter, Tal Kopan. She is live at the convention center there in Philadelphia.
Tal, one of the most important speeches of the night to try and bring the party together, it came from Clinton's rival Bernie Sanders. Right at the end, he delivered that full throttled endorsement for Hillary Clinton. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I remember her as you do. As a great first lady who broke precedent in terms of the role that a first lady was supposed to play as she helped lead the fight for universal healthcare. I served with her in the United States Senate and know her as a fierce advocate for the rights of children. Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: It took a while for him to get there. This sounded much like his stump speech right up until the end. So will that be enough, though, for the progressive wing of the party, the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, to come on board and vote for Hillary Clinton?
TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Well, I think Bernie Sanders did everything that Hillary Clinton's campaign could have asked him to do. He, you know, sort of went through point by point, and I noticed his speech was really well crafted. And that every time he mentioned her name, and he did quite a bit. This was not a Ted Cruz situation where he mentioned her name once and then just kind of gave a stump speech.
He mentioned her name repeatedly and every time he did he connected it to one of the sort of key applause line position that he's been taking all along. So he really wrapped her in the cloak of the progressive movement and made it really difficult for any delegate to not cheer for what he was saying.
Now, your question, whether this will be enough? There's some Bernie supporters that this is -- there's nothing that could be enough. There's some Bernie supporters that are so against Hillary Clinton they're not going to come around. I think the jury is still out on what the percentage of actually going to end up being. But there were some people in that convention hall that made it known that it didn't matter whether it was Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders or any of their heroes, telling them to support Hillary Clinton they were not coming around tonight.
VAUSE: OK, chances are, they would not have voted for Hillary Clinton anyway if Bernie Sanders wasn't in the race so -- earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton's Republican rival, Donald Trump, he was talking a lot about Bernie Sanders. He expects to win over a lot those Bernie Sanders supporters. This is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think his people are going to throw Bernie overboard and I think they're going to probably choose somebody else or pick somebody else. But you know they want help. And I'll bet you a lot of their people come to us. Because -- seriously, and we'll take them. We'll take them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK, seriously, Donald Trump winning over Bernie Sanders supporters, any chance?
KOPAN: Not in large numbers, absolutely not. You know, the most of the Bernie Sanders supporters are going to go with Hillary Clinton, then there's a fraction that will probably go with Green Party candidate Jill Stein perhaps or maybe even the Libertarian candidate or perhaps some others sort of no-vote. There may be a small fraction that votes for Donald Trump, but, you know, I think it would be exaggerating to make much of that. There are going to be some people that go with him. They may like his positions on trade but certainly not enough to call it a movement towards Donald Trump. There's no indication of that.
VAUSE: OK. But the real sell tonight, one that everyone is talking about, making front page news was First Lady Michelle Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Don't let anyone ever tell you that this country isn't great. That somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Even Oprah Winfrey tweeting this out. "My favorite line," she tweeted, "when they go low, we go high." How much of a difference will this speech by the first lady make in the Clinton campaign?
KOPAN: Well, you know, we were talking about it and the Bernie Sanders speech was really for the people in the arena tonight. Michelle Obama's speech was really for the people at home. I think you are going to see clips of this speech played over and over throughout this campaign. I think it delivered really anything that the Hillary Clinton campaign could have dreamed of. You know, Michelle Obama sort of got some lines in there that seemed a little bit of a grudge that she's held against people for what they've said about her family in the past eight years. You know, that line about when they go -- when they go low, we go high, you know, sort of thing.
We've always taken the high road no matter what you all throw at us and we're going to keep doing it. And she showed a lot of class in that regard in going for it.
[01:15:04] And she -- you know, one of the hard things for the Democrats this election cycle is that Donald Trump has really staked out the ground on pessimism. And there's a lot of people in this country who feels that things are going wrong. It's going to be very difficult for these Democrats to make a case on voting on optimism and I think Michelle Obama laid out a roadmap of how the Democrats can try to go about it. You know, speaking of what children are going to be seeing in their next president.
That's one way that Democrats can try to combat what Donald Trump is saying about very real fears and anxieties in the American public this electoral season.
VAUSE: And I guess after tonight, is anyone still talking about the e-mail scandal with the DNC and Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Is that all now being put to rest?
KOPAN: Well, it certainly was not top of mind at the end of the night. You know, I think we're going to see some fallout continue from this, and you know, if it is as they believe sort of Russian attempt to meddle in the election, they may have other tricks up their sleeves that gets it back into the news. But, you know, Debbie Wasserman Schultz's decision to not appear in any capacity at the convention appears to have been a good decision.
She avoided making the story about her tonight and it was able to focus on the actual speeches and the sort of unification theme that came together with party. So that seems to have been the right move for tonight and probably for the rest of the convention.
VAUSE: Tal Kopan, there in Philadelphia. Thank you for staying up late. Appreciate it.
KOPAN: OK. Thanks for having me.
VAUSE: And the Democratic National Committee -- sure thing -- may have known for months their computers were being hacked after a warning from the FBI. Now the agency is investigating that e-mail hack.
WikiLeaks posted thousands of e-mails apparently sent by top party officials that seemed to favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders during a very bitterly fought primary campaign. The Clinton campaign is blaming Russia for the hacks saying the Russians want to help Republican Donald Trump win the White House in November.
Well, for more on this, let's go to Clare Sebastian. She joins us now from Moscow. So, Clare, there's a lot of evidence, according to some reports, which
would all point to the Russians. This all happened during a Moscow time zone. The hackers apparently took Russian holidays off, the IP addresses were linked all the way back to the Russian servers. So either someone has gone to a lot of trouble to frame the Russians or the Russians did it.
What's the Kremlin saying?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, they are definitively knocking this down. We heard yesterday from a Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who said he is not commenting on this, referring, instead, to comments by Donald Trump, Jr., saying this is in fact all lies. And we've heard a few moments ago from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaking on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Lavrov, what do you say about the U.S. accusations that Russia hacked the Democratic Committee e-mails?
SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, I don't want to use four-letter words.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEBASTIAN: So the Russians not wanting to give any credibility to claims they could be behind this. I want to give you another reaction we heard that was a tweet yesterday from the head of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, Dmitry -- sorry, Aleksey Pushkov, he traditionally very vocal on issues of Russia/U.S. relations and he tweeted, "The spirit of McCarthyism is being revived in the U.S. McCarthy hunted, quote, 'red,' now the American press have found a, quote, 'agent' of Putin in the face of Trump. The senator died but his actions live on."
So, again, the Russians are not giving any credibility to this or even saying in a sense that the anti-American rhetoric could be rising off the back of these allegations -- John.
VAUSE: Means to hack is one thing, motive is another. What would the motive be for someone in Russia, maybe not necessarily working in government, but someone in Russia, to actually hack the DNC?
SEBASTIAN: Well, look, as the Clinton campaign said they believe that it was to give more strength to Trump in the presidential campaign and there's been a lot of reports about why that Trump might be a more favorable candidate for Russia than Hillary Clinton. We heard a few days ago he gave an interview to the "New York Times" saying he would not defend, you know, the U.S.'s European NATO allies unless they're reimbursed them for the cost of doing so.
He is seen as being less interventionist perhaps than the current U.S. president and perhaps even Hillary Clinton. And we know that within the Trump campaign, there are also ties to Russia. Paul Manafort, his campaign manager, was the campaign manager for Russian backed former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and as for the two men themselves, well, Putin had said that he believes Trump is, quote, "bright."
He said this in an interview in June with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. And he welcomed his view that he would like to restore U.S./Russian relations, and Trump said that he believed that he would have a good relationship with Putin, that he sees him as a strong leader. So that is -- you know, that's what's being speculated as a potential motive for Russia to want Trump in the White House, rather than Clinton.
[01:20:03] But as I said, the Russians are not giving any credibility to those claims that they might have hacked the DNC as a way of destabilizing the Clinton campaign.
VAUSE: OK, Clare. Thank you. Clare Sebastian, early morning live shot duty day in Moscow, thank you.
Still to come here on NEWSROOM L.A., Turkey continuing its crackdown after a failed military coup. We'll tell you why rights groups now say journalists are under attack.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. The Turkish government has issued arrest warrants for 42 journalists. Officials say the arrest will shed light on the failed military coup earlier this month. But critics say Turkey is trying to undermine press freedom.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is targeting anyone he believes has ties to this self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen who he blames for the coup attempt. The president has also shut down schools, hospitals, charities, fired or surrendered at least 50,000 public workers including journalists, judges, teachers and police.
Jared Malsin is the Mideast bureau chief for the "TIME" magazine. He joins us now from Istanbul.
Jared, thanks for being with us. The government has accused dozens of reporters there of possible criminal conduct but they've released no other detail apart from that.
[01:25:05] Is there any indication of what they may have actually done?
JARED MALSIN, MIDEAST BUREAU CHIEF, TIME MAGAZINE: It's very difficult to evaluate these charges. Obviously this is coming a little over a week after the failed military coup attempt, in which factions of the military commandeered F-16s, tanks, and helicopter gunships in an attempt to over throw the elected government, and so there's been an extremely fierce response to that from this government as it tries to restore control and clamp down on the movement that it blames for organizing this coup which is the followers of Fethullah Gulen who is a religious figure who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania. And it seems that they're taking extremely broad interpretation of who any of these followers might be. And at the moment, we can't really evaluate whether or not any of
these people, whether there's any truth to these allegations, especially when it comes to journalists and the arrest warrant yesterday of these 42 journalists, including some who have been critical of the government in the past. So it's --
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: And this is just --
MALSIN: Yes.
VAUSE: Sorry to interrupt. I was just going to say, this is just the start of the government's three-month long state of emergency, so the fear I guess is that this is now just the beginning.
MALSIN: Yes, that's the fear. I mean, if you are a journalist or an academic here, I think there's a lot of concern. Since the failure of the coup attempt in this crackdown, the government has at one point blocked at least 20 Web sites. There were 34 journalists at least to have their press credentials revoked and now this arrest warrant for 42 journalists. And yes, and a lot of anxiety that the worst is still to come.
Again, it's very important to understand here that, you know, the coup attempt was opposed by not the only government, but also all of the opposition parties kind of standing in unity and there was really an outpouring of kind of goodwill for this government, even from some of the people who were formerly critical, and so there's a lot of concern about how the government is going to use this kind of unprecedented moment of unity and whether they are going to use that to crack down on critics who had nothing to do with the coup.
VAUSE: What do we know about the treatment of those who have been arrested and detained so far?
MALSIN: Well, Amnesty International released a report yesterday documenting what they said was widespread torture of the thousands of detainees who have been swept up since the coup. Most of those detainees are soldiers who allegedly participated in the coup attempt last Friday, 15th of July. But they are saying that there were allegations of beatings and other forms of torture. So some very grave concerns there.
VAUSE: OK. Jared, we appreciate you being with us. Jared Malsin, the "TIME" magazine Mideast bureau chief. Thank you.
And we'll take a short break here on NEWSROOM L.A. When we come back, trying to bring a monster wild fire under control in California.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:32:00] VAUSE: Welcome back everyone. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause, with the headlines now.
(HEADLINES)
VAUSE: Wildfires have scorched thousands of hectares in two different areas in California. Many have had to leave their homes along the coast between Carmel and Big Sur as the fire grew to 6400 hectares and it's only 5 percent contained. In the river valley, the wildfire has spread to 14,000 hectares and threatening thousands of homes.
Paul Vercammen in on the scene and reports it's literally an uphill battle for firefighters.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, here's the challenge. You can see the wall of flames coming up the hill. It's extremely difficult for firefighters to go chasing after this and stay in front of it. And this area fire has been marked by this. Fire roars up hill. They call it a chimney because it comes right up. You see the dust roll in front of it. And off to the side, the smoke is thick, and also the fire is burning downhill. Extremely tough conditions for firefighters to get after this steep terrain. Extremely dry conditions because of the drought. That makes it easier for all of brush to catch fire. So, quite a task at hand for the firefighters here in the valley, no easy task at that, as the flames go up and down these canyons, and burn through the area.
Back to you now, John.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Paul Vercammen, thank you for that report.
Let's go to Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri at the World Weather Center for more details.
These fires, you see the smoke and haze hanging overall of Los Angeles, it seems.
(CROSSTALK)
VAUSE: We have lost Pedram. No he is back. There he is.
JAVAHERI: It's a serious fire, when you think about what's happening here. Five years now, five consecutive years we have had a drought, so the terrain of the region as you saw is like a tinderbox. And the satellite perspective, you see the marine layer, as it's known, hugs the coast line, the fires we are talking about, the Sand Fire and the area around Big Sur and you see a closer look at this and you see the smoke moving across the interior, hundreds of kilometers away, at Lake Tahoe, inland to Reno, in the state of Nevada, folks are reporting hazy conditions as the fire and smoke spreads to the east. That's the concern there. To the south around the Sand Fire, much the same with the smoke pushing off to the desert.
I will lay the land and show you the terrain that we are dealing with in southern California, as you look closer, about 50 kilometers in, firefighters having to go door to door and plead with the people to get out of had their properties. That makes the firefighters lose valuable time. The terrain here is 40 to 50 degrees slope in the area. So a treacherous situation for firefighters having to battle the flames across the region.
So, the question is, how much land in total has been consumed from just the two fires? Over 20,000 hectares. That's almost double the size of the city of Paris as far as land area, just over two fires.
Look at this. Any rainfall? Not really. Across parts of the Arizona desert, you see thunderstorms blossoming but the California forecast is dry. Some good news for the temperature department, and by good news, we mean going from 39 degrees around the Sand Fire area down to 34. Toasty. Notice zero percent chance for rainfall the next seven days. And sunny skies and high heat will be challenging for the firefighters, mainly because of the terrain that really exacerbates the problem -- John?
[01:36:36] VAUSE: Yeah, with all the drought and fires over the last couple of years, you wonder if there's much left to burn now.
Pedram, thank you.
A short break here. When we come back, from Internet pioneer to brand name that lost its way. The story of Yahoo! Finally, there is an end in sight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Well, some tech news. Verizon is buying Yahoo! for $5 billion. Yahoo! being integrated with AOL, also owned by Verizon. A Yahoo! spokesperson says it's too early to say whether it's CEO, Marissa Mayer, will stay on. The U.S. federal regulators must approve the deal, but it's expected to be finalized in the first quarter of next year.
Let's bring in Eric Schiffer, CEO of Patriarch Equity, to discuss what is kind of a massive deal, but not when you think of Microsoft offering $45 billion for Yahoo!, how do you go from $130 billion 16 years ago to $5 billion or less?
ERIC SCHIFFER, CEO, PATRIARCH EQUITY: They didn't stay relevant. They didn't do it. That's the problem. They could have gotten out. I think they were misled by the original founder that kept wanting to find a savior. They went through five or six CEOs. Look, it did not happen. It was a huge disaster one after the other. To see this break down is crazy.
[01:40:10] VAUSE: The big savior was the new CEO, Marisa Mayer. She is staying on, but does she have to say right now? The expectation is she could leave.
SCHIFFER: If she left, that is $57 million they have to pay her. I don't think that they will see her leave that quickly.
VAUSE: If she walks, if and when she leaves, she gets $57 million. She received $100 million in compensation the last couple of years. That is a lot of money for not succeeding.
SCHIFFER: $219 million for failing.
VAUSE: Yeah.
SCHIFFER: It's crazy and insane. It happens with a lot of on CEOs. It's where you see the backlash in the U.S. and in Europe. It's fine if they were performing. But there was no performance.
VAUSE: Turning Yahoo! around, regardless of the CEO, was going to be a herculean task.
SCHIFFER: Yes, it's a herculean task. This was her story where she got too close to the sun.
VAUSE: Promised way too much.
SCHIFFER: Way too much.
VAUSE: Verizon has bought AOL and Yahoo! It's the 90s again. How do the acquisitions work for Verizon?
SCHIFFER: It's great. They are coming up to saturation. This allows them to take their 100 million subscribers and give them great content. And expand that user base. They have got a billion users that now they can reach from with advertising. So they can make more money. They want to get to $2 billion. This is a big way for them to make it happen.
VAUSE: This deal is odd. They are paying just shy of $5 billion to Yahoo!, but the other assets for the company, valued between $30 billion and $40 billion, are being left behind. And it will be a publicly traded investment company, with the definition "no current intent." What is that and how does it work?
SCHIFFER: It's a holding company. Essentially, it's an investment company. There's no real assets -- no real operating service company at all. And so, this is really, will ultimately going to be sold, it's nothing more than a hedge fund at this point. The real power behind Yahoo! in terms of the core intellectual property has been sold.
VAUSE: And then there's the huge stake of an Alibaba. It's a tax issue the reason they don't want to get rid of it?
SCHIFFER: Yeah, it's a tax issue. They tried to get an opinion on the tax side. They will probably hold it for a while, who knows, it's a hedge fund now. Yahoo! is the Hindenburg. It's blown up with just core assets that are left.
VAUSE: From Internet pioneer to hedge fund. How times have changed.
Our thanks to you.
SCHIFFER: Thank you. Good to see you.
VAUSE: Appreciate it.
You have been watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause.
Stay with us. "World Sport" is up next. And then I will be back with another hour of news from all around the world.
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[01:44:43] KATE RILEY, CNN WORLD SPORT ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to "World Sport." I'm Kate Riley.
Under 11 days to go until Rio 2016 and the controversial decision from the International Olympic Committee making headlines. That is that the Russians not getting a blanket ban for the country's doping scandal. WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency is disappointed its recommendations to ban Russia has been rejected. The IOC instead decided to leave it up to the individual sports governing bodies to decide if Russian Athletes are clean and should be allowed to take part. But as you see, Russian athletes have been arriving at the Olympic Village. One who is not showing up is doping whistleblower, Yuliya Stepanova. Her testimony helped to uncover the scale of doping. She was hoping to compete under the neutral flag in Rio, but the IOC ruled that she should not take part as she failed a doping test. She said that the decision was based on wrong and untrue statements.
So, where do some of those 28 international federations stand in regard to the IOC's decision? The IWAF has ruled that 67 Russian track and field athletes will not compete. The governing body of world aquatics have banned seven Russian swimmers but the synchronized swimming, diving and women's water polo team is eligible. The Tennis Federation has confirmed that Russian players will be playing. And archery Russian players will be playing. Russia's sailing team have all been given the go ahead by the International Sailing Federation.
So, among the uncertainty, we know that Russian tennis players will be going to Rio.
CNN's Claire Sebastian asked Tennis Federation president, Shamil Tarpischev, if Russia is doing enough to mend its sporting reputation.
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SHAMIL TARPISCHEV, TENNIS FEDERATION PRESIDENT (through translation): I don't think the country's sporting reputation is suffering only from the doping scandal because historical of the Soviet Union, the Russian sports have been strong and it has stayed that way, it's another matter of -- they are unique in this regard. The structure of the management system needs to be tough and able to be persecuted if need.
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RILEY: Meanwhile, there's been embarrassment for the Olympic Games organizers. Australia originally declared it would not let its athletes move into the freshly opened Olympic Village, describing it as unlivable. However, a few hours ago, the Australian Olympic mission chief said that fantastic progress has been made and expects the team to move in by Wednesday.
CNN's Shasta Darlington looks back on the teething problems.
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SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 31 towers have been decorated with team signs, but as the village opens the doors to many of the 17,000 athletes and coaches slated to sleep here, controversy on the first day.
KATY CHILLER, AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC MISSION CHIEF: We felt that our building was not safe because of the combination of plumbing and electrical issues. When we did our stress test yesterday afternoon, there was significant leakages from plumbing pipes.
DARLINGTON: Organizers said that hundreds of athletes moved in on Sunday and they were working quickly to resolve problems. "Every Olympic Village because of the magnitude, needs adjustments until it becomes perfect. The important thing is that everything will be resolved before the games without disturbing athletes."
We toured some of the spartan apartments before the inauguration.
(on camera): There was discussion whether or not there would be air conditioning. They did not want to pay for it, but with the Zika scare, they had to put it in the rooms. Is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They put air conditioning in the bedrooms, and fans in non bedrooms but no televisions.
DARLINGTON: The outdoor space helps compensate -- swimming pools, tennis courts and bike trails.
The U.S. delegation, which expects to have 500 athletes and staff staying in the Olympic Village, said as is the case with every games they are working to resolve, quote, unquote, "minor issues."
For the Australian delegation, the problems are far from minor.
CHILLER: Every village has teething problems. It's difficult to suddenly have 20,000 people in a confined space such as an Olympic Village. I have never experienced -- this is my fifth Olympic games -- a village in the state or lack of state of readiness at this point in time.
DARLINGTON: The latest snafu less than two weeks before the start of these very controversial games.
Shasta Darlington, CNN, Rio de Janeiro.
(END VIDEOTAPE) [01:49:47] RILEY: Many sports are taking a breather during the Olympics including Formula One. But with the way he has been driving of late, Lewis Hamilton will not want to take a break, as he overtook Rosberg with victory on Sunday in Hungary. Despite being on post, Rosberg was out paced at the start by Hamilton, who then took control at the circuit he loves. This was a record fifth win for Hamilton in Hungary and the third consecutive victory this season and the fifth in six races. Hamilton, who now leads standings by six points, wipes out a 43 point margin in six races. The German would love to win next Sunday's race in his home country and, frankly, needs to considering he hasn't won since the European Grand Prix in mid June. A win for Rosberg would make it two wins for him in Germany, the same amount of time Hamilton has won.
CNN "World Sport" will be right back.
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RILEY: Welcome back. It was said to be a hotly anticipated reunion for between former Real Madrid manager, Josie Mourinho, and former Barcelona boss, Pat Guardiola. The fierce rivals were about to meet for the first time in almost three years. But Monday's Manchester Derby in China ended up getting postponed. The International Champion's Cup match between Manchester City and Man United was called off. The state of the pitch in the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing was the reason. The turf was soaked.
And Man City Captain Vincent Kompany had a message.
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VINCENT KOMPANY, MANCHESTER CITY CAPTAIN: It's sad, sad for the fans and disappointing, we looked forward to playing a derby in Beijing for a long time. It's sad to call it off, but I think mainly we want to thank all the fans for the passion and the way they have received us in Beijing.
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RILEY: As the count down to Rio begins all this week, we will bring you our special series on Asians competing at the summer games. And we start with the story of three female Indian wrestlers, the first team ever to qualify for the games. And they have done so with the help of one man, coach, uncle and father.
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SUMNIMA UDAS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Training for Rio. The pressure is palpable. Sweating. Struggling. Striving.
"Every part of your body needs to be strong. From your head to your feet. Presence of mind, power, stamina, determination, you need all of it."
For the first time ever, three Indian female wrestlers have qualified for the Olympics.
(on camera): Wrestling is not new to India, this sport has done well at the Olympics and long been dominated by men. Three female wrestlers have qualified for Rio for wrestling. They are on the verge of making history.
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[01:55:11] (voice-over): They are tough, unyielding, but the physical balance of wrestling is the least of their challenges.
UNIDENTIFIED INDIAN OLYMPIC WRESTLER (through translation): In our society, it's difficult to be a woman, forget about being a wrestler.
UDAS: All three come from one of the most patriarchal areas.
UNIDENTIFIED INDIAN OLYMPIC WRESTLER (through translation): Our first fight was to wear what we want and then to train, to be able to stay out. There's so many barriers.
UDAS: Barriers these girls were able to break through because of one man, a legend around here, turning his traditional wrestling mud pit in to a modern gym, training all four of his daughters and nieces to be professional wrestlers.
UNIDENTIFIED INDIAN OLYMPIC WRESTLING COACH (through translation): Most people here are still very biased towards women. When a daughter is born, people are sad here. Parents give sons better food, educate them. And daughters are just raised to do all the House work.
UDAS: In a state where 37,000 girls are killed every year before they are even born, one of the highest rates of abortion of females the unlikely success of these girls is inspiring.
UNIDENTIFIED INDIAN OLYMPIC WRESTLING COACH (through translation): Things are slowly changing. Many now want their daughters to be wrestlers. I built the first and only wrestling gym for women and now there's more than 50 of them.
UDAS: Changing mind-sets with sport, from villages to towns, girls to women.
Sumnima Udas, CNN, India.
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RILEY: And we wish them well.
That is it for this edition of CNN "World Sport. I'm Kate Riley. Thank you so much for watching.
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[02:00:11] VAUSE: This is CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles.
