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NASA's Rescue Robots; Tributes Pour In For Journalists Gunned Down in Virginia; World Stocks Rebound; Balkans Seek Help for Refugee Crisis. Aired 8:00a-9:00a ET

Aired August 27, 2015 - 8:00   ET

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

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, HOST: Hello everyone. I'm Fred Pleitgen here at CNN in London and welcome to Newstream.

Tributes pour in for two American journalists gunned down by a former college on live TV.

Plus, more lives lost on the dangerous journey to Europe as leaders talk about the continent's migration crisis.

And the pop after the drop. That's how some analyst describe the turn around on world stock markets, but will it last?

We begin with the shocking murder of two American journalists and a community that is trying to come to grips with the attack that happened on

live TV. Reporter Allison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were fatally shot on Wednesday as they were conducting an interview. A former disgruntled

employee from their Virginia news station recorded himself carrying out the murders before then killing himself. Our own Victor Blackwell has the

latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY PARKER, FATHER: Everybody that she touched loves her and she loved everybody back.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN: This morning family members in a community are left reeling, grieving the loss of a newly engaged cameraman and an

aspiring anchor with so much life left to live.

PARKER: She was extremely happy and she loved this guy with all her heart. And that's the toughest thing for me.

BLACKWELL: Colleges say 27 year old Adam Ward and 24 year old Allison Parker, a Virginia affiliate WDBJ were unfailingly positive, relentlessly

hardworking and never shied away from a story.

ALLISON PARKER, WDBJ REPORTER: Adam, come out from in front of the camera.

BLACKWELL: Both Parker and Ward began as interns at the station, eventually becoming a team as staff reporter and photographer for the

morning show.

A. PARKER: I am a Virginia girl.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had aspirations of being an anchor and I have no doubt she would have been able to accomplish that goal.

BLACKWELL: The 24 year old was a rising star appearing on CNN on last November.

UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: Thank you so much. Allison Parker from WDBJ in Roanoke.

UNIDENITIFIED FEMALE: She had an explosive personality. She always smiled. She was full of ideas.

BLACKWELL: Parker had been dating WDBJ evening anchor, Chris Hurst, and had just moved in with him.

She was the most radiant woman I ever met, he posted on social media. And for some reason she loved me back.

ADAM WARD, WDBJ CAMERAMAN: In Salem, Adam Ward, News 7 Sports.

BLACKWELL: Ward was engaged to the morning shows producer, Melissa Ott, who was supposed to be celebrating her last day at the station

Thursday. Instead, she watched in horror in the control room as her future husband was gunned down.

Later on that same day, her wedding dress was delivered. A symbol of love and commitment to Ward for a lifetime shattered by this senseless act

of violence.

Victor Blackwell, CNN Moneta, Virginia.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PLEITGEN: And as Victor was just reporting there, Allison Parker's boyfriend Chris Hurst is an anchor at that same TV network and he spoke

earlier to our own Chris Cuomo about that special relationship they shared.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CHRIS HURST, PARKER'S BOYFRIEND: The love that we had was so rare and I want everyone out there to know that it is possible to get that love,

even if it only lasts for nine months. And that is giving me some strength to carry on today.

I was thinking last night as I was struggling to fall asleep for only a few hours that I am dismayed that we were coming up to going to more

weddings, more events, she was just about to go-- she was a brilliant dancer. She was a brilliant dancer. And we have a charity dancing

competition here that she was going to be a part of and she was going to do the tango because her instructor said, "Allison, you're so sexy. You need

to do the tango with me." And she loved it. But I couldn't see it until the night of the performance. It was supposed to be later on this fall. And he

will do it by himself in her honor. So I won't get to see that.

And I thought last night, we didn't even get a Thanksgiving or a Christmas together.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PLEITGEN: And as our affiliate WDBJ in Virginia and indeed most of Virignia and the United States mourns the shooting victims, there's also

some good news to report on this day. The third shooting victim, Vickie Gardner, is in good condition. The hospital tells CNN she's recovering

after emergency surgery from a gunshot wound to her back.

Gardener was being interviewed by Allison Parker at the time of the shooting.

Now, immediately after the shooting took place the gunman took to Twitter and Facebook to rant about his motives and to show off the murder.

Our own senior media correspondent Brian Stelter joins me now live from New York.

And Brian, some of the criticisms about social media in cases like this in past have been that it's been very messy, it was very graphic. It

seems as though in this case, social media actually came to terms with this fairly quickly. What do you think?

[08:05:32] BRIAN STELTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I was watching this man's Twitter account when he posted the video, two of them. The first

time, the full video didn't post. It cut off right before the shooting, so he went and uploaded a second copy where you can actually see the shots

being fired.

Within about five minutes, that account was suspended by Twitter. I saw it pop up on my screen, it said this account is no longer accessible.

And Facebook also acted pretty quickly to get these videos off of Facebook.

Now that said, they are still findable, they are still searchable on other websites on sites like Live Leak that pride themselves on always

providing even the most gory of videos.

It goes to show that on the internet, once something is put it, it cannot be entirely taken down, even though these social networking sites

are trying to be responsible.

PLEITGEN: And Brian when this happened, he also had sent a document to ABC, I believe it was, which was sort of something like a suicide note

where he outlined his -- all of his grievances. What we're seeing now though is that the discussion in America, but globally as well, still seems

to be focusing on the victims rather than what he claims are his motives. Is that right?

STELTER: That is right. And that is something we've seen in the past few years, something that's been growing. And I think we're seeing it more

than ever today. It's the idea that when there are these shootings in the United States, particularly mass shootings, ones where many people are

killed by a gunman, that the focus in the news coverage should be on the victims and not on the killer. And some of the family members from past

mass shootings are advocating for what they call no notoriety. Don't name the gunman at all, don't even show his face, and don't show the name.

That's something that's hard to do in the initial hours after a tragedy. Obviously we on television have to be telling people about who

was the killer, but to put the emphasis on the victims is the right thing to do, and something I'm seeing more and more in media coverage. Right

now, that's what we're doing. We're showing the faces of the victims and not focusing on the killer.

And I think to the extent that we are talking about the killer, we'd have to talk about his use of social media, because unfortunately it is a

turning point. We haven't seen anything quite like this before. The idea that someone wore a camera on their body to record their act of killing.

It almost looked like a video game unfortunately. A real life version of one of those first-person shooter games. And came to life in a horrific

way.

Television by and large in the U.S. is not showing the videos, not showing the content. But it is, like I said, accessible online.

It's the difference between push and pull. If you think about television, it's a push medium. We're pushing it to you right now. You

don't have a choice about what we're going to show you next.

However, on the internet, you can click the button. You can choose to view the video. So it's a pull medium. And that does seem to me to be a

reasonable balance. The videos are accessible online if you do want to see them. But on television, we don't need to be wallpapering the screen with

them, you know what I mean.

PLEITGEN: Absolutely. Thanks very much, Brian Stelter, putting those new challenges as America and the world indeed deals with this tragedy.

Thank you very much.

This is the latest in a string of deadly shootings in the United States. Just last month, President Barack Obama said in an interview that

one of his greatest frustrations is not being able to get stricter gun laws passed. This is what he had to say after Wednesday's attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What we know is that the number of people who die from gun related incidents around this country

dwarfs any deaths that happen through terrorism. And we're willing to spend trillions of dollars to prevent terrorist activities, but we haven't

been willing, so far at least, to impose some common sense gun safety measures that could save some lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Gun control, as you might already know, is a tricky political issue in the United States. You'll hear some Americans cite the

second amendment of the U.S. constitution, saying it guarantees their right to bear arms. But what that means is frequently debated. The amendment

actually starts with a reference to a well regulated militia being necessary as you can see right there on your screen.

Now the U.S. is the world's largest maker, buyer and seller of guns, with a powerful gun lobby. It has the most civilian guns per capita,

according to the monitoring group Small Arms Survey. There are 89 firearms per 100 people. And that number actually also includes children who of

course normally do not own guns.

The number two country, that is Yemen with 55 guns for every 100. Switzerland, which actually has a militia armed force, so people after

their military service keep their weapons, and then come Finland and Cyprus to round out the top five.

And now to another deadly U.S. shooting case: Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes, formally sentenced Wednesday will never see freedom

again.

The 27-year-old received 12 life terms without the chance for parole, one for each of the victims be gunned down inside a movie theater three

years ago. Homes also received more than 3,000 years in prison for the attempted borders of dozens of people that he wounded on that day.

And coming up right here on News Stream, as more people risk their lives to cross into Europe, leaders there are trying to find a way to

accommodate the influx.

And, the markets are looking sunnier today from Asia all the way to Europe, but has the storm really cleared up. We'll take a look.

Plus, Donald Trump speaks to CNN. His opinion in U.S. gun laws fresh on the heels of that tragedy in Virginia when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:12:29] PLEITGEN: Welcome back, everyone. You're watching CNN News Stream. And you're looking at a visual version of the news that we

have for you.

We've already told you about that tragedy in the U.S. state of Virginia where two journalists were gunned down while doing their jobs.

And later we'll find out what's being done about the thousands of desperate people trying to reach Europe.

But now, let's check the world's stock markets for you. U.S. stocks are poised for yet another day of hopefully big gains as concern eases over

China's volatile market swings. Futures for all major indexes are firmly higher ahead of the open. This follows Wednesday's 619 point gain on Wall

Street, the third largest in the Dow's history.

You can see the futures up there on your screen right now.

Meantime, Europe's major markets are posting big gains at this hour, soothing words from central bankers are among the factors easing investor

nerves there. You can see those numbers as well, all of them with about a little over 2 percent gains. And Asia-Pacific markers also staged a

dramatic rebound. The Shanghai composite, which has been problematic over the past couple of days, closed more than 5 percent higher at a much needed

reprieve after days of brutal losses.

But even as we see calm returning to the markets, some analysts say it's too early to call this route over. So, we're going to get some

analysis from CNN's Asia Pacific Editor Andrew Stevens who is in Hong Kong for us right now. And Andrew, what folks around the world want to know is

the storm over?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I think that is the question, Fred. And at this stage, it's very, very difficult to

give a clear answer to whether it is or not.

Yes, it is a respite. What we saw today was the Shanghai rebounding some 5 percent after losing 20 percent in just five days trading, that is a

massive fall in anyone's book, came back today. And interestingly, it came back right at the end of the day, which does suggest -- and there have been

reports, but unconfirmed reports -- that state-owned operations were buying pension funds, insurance companies, state-owned were buying the Shanghai

Stocks today to boost them up at the end of the day to set it up for another positive day tomorrow.

So, we've seen this before. The government has intervened in this sort of fashion before. And it did lead to a calm period of a couple of

weeks where the markets did actually rebound, but after that they came off again and they came off sharply.

So, we can't say with any degree of certainty whether this market has flattened out for the long term or not.

Remember, Fred, 12 months ago this market was 40 percent lower than where it is today. So, there is still some distance for this to fall if

investors still want to get out.

[08:15:16] PLEITGEN: And there is still Andrew some concern about the Chinese economy. It's interesting, because it seems as though some

analysts are saying they believe it may have bottomed out earlier this year, but some are not so sure. What's the word there?

STEVENS: Yeah, again it's difficult because China is such a closed place. It's described as a black box when you want to get sort of

information transparent and reliable economic information.

And there has always been these questions over the information, the official statistics that China does hand out.

The consensus now over the last couple of months is that this is an economy that is growing quite a lot more slowly than the official figures

would suggest. And the last GDP reading was I think 6.8 percent. Independent economists would tell you it's probably closer to 5 percent.

But, there is a school of thought that says that the economy in China may have bottomed out in April of this year. It's not going to rebound

sharply, that is just not going to happen, because this is an economy undergoing a key transition, a generational transition from one economic

model to another. It had this spectacular growth for 30 years on the back of exporting to the world and also throwing money at investments, building

the infrastructure of China. That model was unsustainable. They are switching to a model where consumers will drive economic growth. That is a

painful transition. And that is what's causing this slowdown.

So, put all that together, we are going to -- you know, they've called it the new normal themselves where we have a much slower economy relatively

speaking, Fred. And it is going to take a lot of time for this to fall into place. Policy makers, you know, this is all new for them as well. So

it's not going as smoothly. And you can't really expect it to go smoothly because it is such a big transition.

PLEITGEN: Yeah, I always have to keep the broader picture in perspective there. Thank you very much for offering that to us. Andrew

Stevens there in Hong Kong.

And we have some tech news now for you, after failing to buy Twitch last year, Google is going head to head with Twitch by launching YouTube

Gaming. The game centric site lets users browse and stream gaming video in one place. It also boasts 60 frames per second livestream, rewind function

and video that runs on HTML 5.0. Twitch video runs on Flash, which crashes quite often.

But even with YouTube's beefed up live stream features, taking on Twitch certainly isn't easy.

Twitch has more than half a million broadcasters and 100 million viewers a month. Their apps also integrate with Playstation and Xbox

consoles for easy broadcasting.

YouTube Gaming is working on its own mobile app.

Now, back to the U.S. presidential race. In the last hour, U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke to our own Chris Cuomo, the

Republican frontrunner weighed in on the tragic shooting in the U.S. state of Virginia, which killed two journalists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER: This really just doesn't happen. If you look, every time you have one of these events, whether it's the high

schools or the movie theaters, they go into the background of these people that do the shooting and people that knew them and were close to them, you

know, 95 percent of the time they say, oh, now I really can understand how that happened. He was really off the edge.

Now, you know, it's a very tough thing, because you can say that, and you probably say that about a lot of people when nothing happens and they

lead productive lives. So it is a very complex situation, a very, very sad situation when you look at what happened here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: He, Trump, said that he also is opposed to tighter gun laws in the United States, but is in favor of addressing the mental health issue

to prevent gun violence in the future.

Now, of course, the presidential race is already a very interesting one. And besides, Trump, much of the buzz in the White House race involves

-- or revolves around U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and whether or not he'll declare himself a candidate in the race.

He was asked about it during a conference call with members of the democratic national committee, and in response to a question about his

plans, Biden said he and his family are addressing whether they have the emotional fuel to make a run.

Biden, you'll recall, lost his son Bo to brain cancer a few months ago. He said he'd have to give it his whole heart and soul. And told the

committee, quote, right now both are pretty well banged up.

And you are watching CNN News Stream, still to come, a recordbreaking number of refugees have arrived in Europe struggling to build a new life.

We'll look at some new obstacles that they face.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:44] PLEITGEN: Welcome back, everyone.

And there has been another tragedy involving migrants trying to make their way to Europe.

Police in Austria say they found a truck parked on the side of a highway with a number of bodies inside, apparently refugees.

The discovery was made near the town of Parndorf. And Reuters quotes an Austrian newspaper as saying the victims apparently suffocated inside

the lorry.

This comes after the Italian Coast Guard said 51 people were found dead on a fishing boat off Libya. Most of the victims were found in the

cargo hold. More than 400 were rescued from that vessel eventually.

Other operations in the area saved 3,000 people. And all of that was on this Wednesday alone.

Now, this year has seen an unprecedented number of people try to reach Europe by sea. As of August 26, more than 293,000 have crossed the

Mediterranean Sea, most of them of course, landing in either Italy or in Greece.

That's already more than last year's total of 219,000 new arrivals.

The number of deaths at sea are also at records levels this year with more than 2,400 fatalities to date.

Those who make the journey then face an exhausting onward journey.

Record numbers of migrants are making their way across the Balkans to find a new home in western Europe. Many have fled their homes in war torn

Syria and other places and are now refugees.

You can see how far they've traveled crossing through Turkey, then on to Greece, eventually, making their way to Serbia and Hungary, and reaching

Hungary is absolutely critical in all of this as Hungary is part of the Schengen area, European Union's passport free zone giving migrants easier

access to Europe's wealthier nations

And it's important to remember that a number of these working class professionals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a degree in accounting. My brother studied geology. And I want to complete. I want to build my future there.

In Syria, they don't have future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: As you can see there, individual who speaks very good English, also well educated. Many people have a similar fate.

And so-called transit countries are struggling to cope with the influx of migrants. The foreign ministers of Serbia and Macedonia are asking

their European partners for a comprehensive plan to deal with the crisis. And our own Ian Lee now joins me here on set in London. And Ian, there is

a summit going on today between the European Union and these Balkan nations. What are they talking about.

[08:25:25] IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's a wide range of things we're going to be discussing. Obviously, migrants is

top on the list, that's one of the corridors, as you just talked about, how migrants go into Europe is through those Balkan countries.

PLEITGEN: That's mostly coming from Turkey and then through Greece, Macedonia?

LEE: Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and then throughout Western Europe.

And so they're going to be talking about how to mitigate that situation. They are offering up 1.5 million euros to help provide shelter,

provide water, basic hygiene as well as medical care for these people...

PLEITGEN: It's interesting. When you say -- when you say mitigate, you mean on the one hand trying to get the border patrol to be better, but

also getting a better humanitarian situation for these people as well, is that correct?

LEE: That's the one thing we've heard from everyone is that to try to improve the humanitarian situation for these people, because there are

hundreds of thousands of people coming through this area, coming through, you know, Italy and Greece in these corridors and how to make it so there

is a humane way of dealing with them and not just leave them out there in a lot of times in makeshift shelters without these basic services.

PLEITGEN: Now, there's two sides to this summit, as I've seen it. On the one hand, obviously, it's these many people who come from places like

Syria, who come from other places as well -- Pakistan, Afghanistan, some of them especially over that Turkey route. But there are also a lot of people

coming from Balkan countries and also trying to get to Western Europe.

LEE: That's right. And there's a real distinction between the two.

One, you do have these people coming from war torn countries that do have very good chance of claiming asylum inside Europe. And then you do

have these more economic migrants from the Balkan countries that they say right now they don't have really -- they don't have any space for them.

They need to fast track the way to send them back to their country's origin.

But they're not just forgetting about them. The European countries in the EU are saying that they're going to try to help provide vocational

training for these people to help improve the employment situation in their countries of origin.

PLEITGEN: No matter how wealthy any of these European countries are - - Germany, France, the United Kingdom, they still have trouble dealing with this issue. What are they up again? How big is this problem for these big

countries? How many are coming?

LEE: I think, yeah, you just will have to look at the numbers. I mean, with over a million people are expected to be migrants this year.

And you have Germany alone is taking 800,000 people. You look at Sweden also is taking a large number.

And so it has produced a burden on these countries as well, especially the border countries such as Greece and Italy are the initial point of

entry. They're in desperate need of help, too, because that's the first stop for a lot -- many of these migrants before they go to western Europe.

PLEITGEN: They're suffering from an economic crisis even without that.

Thanks very much Ian Lee for joining me here in the studio.

And still to come on News Stream, as the United States comes to terms with yet another deadly shooting, we focus on the lives of the victims

which were taken far too soon. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:47] PLEITGEN: Welcome back everyone. I'm Fred Pleitgen here in London. You are watching CNN News Stream. And these are your world

headlines at this hour.

Two American journalists who were fatally shot as they conducted a live TV interview are being remembered today. Reporter Alison Parker was

only 24-years-old and her Cameraman Adam Ward was just 27. The third shooting victim Vicki Gardner survived. She is recovering and in good

condition the hospital tells CNN.

The foreign ministers of Serbia and Macedonia say Europe must come up with a comprehensive plan for dealing with the influx of migrants from the

Middle East and Africa. They raise the issue at a summit of western Balkan nations going on right now in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

U.S. futures are set for yet another day of gains as concern recedes over China's volatile market swings. All three major indexes are firmly

higher ahead of the open as you can see on your screen there. And in the meantime, European markets are posting gains this hour as well, following

dramatic gains in Asia.

Prosecutors in China have accused 11 government officials and port executives of negligence over the deadly Tianjin blasts. These explosions

killed at least 145 people. Chinese state media also reports that 11 executives of the company that stored the dangerous chemicals have also

been detained.

Now I want to go back to Roanoke, Virginia where the community is rallying around Virginia News Broadcaster WDBJ. Colleagues, family and

friends are paying tribute to the fallen journalists, their lives cut short after a shooting that happened on live TV. The disgruntled former employee

behind the murders took his own life.

Now authorities are looking to the writings he left on Social Media and elsewhere. Our Chris Cuomo has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPNDENT (voice-over): As the sun rises in Roanoke, two faces that said good morning to Virginians are gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alison Parker and Adam Ward were part of our family here at the station, and many of you have told us that they were

part of your morning each day, as well.

CUOMO: Twenty-four-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year- old cameraman Adam Ward, executed by a former employee who was fired from their

news station two years ago.

Vester Flanagan, known by his TV name Bryce Williams, killed the journalists while they were live on air, recording video of himself

carrying out the executions. While on the run, posting those videos online, going on a Twitter rant, saying, quote, "Alison made racist comments, and

Adam went to H.R. on me after working with me one time."

By the afternoon the murderer had shot and killed himself. But before confirmation of his death, WDBJ's general manager sharing his anguish on

air.

MARKS: I'm going to step out of my role as a former journalist and say, I'm not really sure whether I want him to live or die. If he dies,

then he took the coward's way out.

CUOMO: The shooter would fax rambling suicide notes, 23 pages long, to ABC News. He complained that years of bullying at former workplaces,

including WDBJ, drove him to violence.

He also wrote, quote, "What sent me over the top was the Charleston church shooting. And my hollow-point bullets have the victims' initials on

them."

A picture of the murderer's anger emerging in the video captured just last month, showing him in a bout of road rage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you're still a (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Are you finished?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been finished. You followed me here.

CUOMO: What's going through your mind when you get in the parking lot and you see him get out?

BRANDON FOSTER, ALLEGEDLY HAD ENCOUNTER WITH SHOOTER: Well, just a lot of things. I parked in a way that I wouldn't get blocked in and then I got

out of my vehicle quickly so I wouldn't be in a cage with somebody that's aggressively following me. And I was pretty much making a beeline to the

store to population, really, sort of have some other people around because he was obviously, you know, not in the right mind.

CUOMO: In an interview with FOX News, Alison's father says this is a problem he's now dedicating his life to solving.

PARKER: We've got to do something about crazy people getting guns. This is something that is Alison's legacy that I want to make happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[08:35:02] PLEITGEN: It's a very tough questions being asked in the United States after that deadly shooting. That was our own Chris Cuomo

reporting.

And for a closer look at the lives of the two American journalists lost this week, you can head to our website CNN.com. There, we profile

Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward and honor their legacy through the eyes of those who knew them best.

Now, organizers of the bring back our girls campaign are holding a rally in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. They are marking a grim 500 days

since more than 200 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram.

Some of the girls managed to escape from the militants, but most of them are still missing.

The rally comes after UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called for an unconditional release of the girls. Ban had promised support for Nigeria's

fight against Boko Haram.

Now, the Iraqi military says two senior Iraqi commanders have been killed fighting ISIS. It happened in Ramadi, or near Ramadi, on Thursday.

One of the men killed was the deputy commander of the Anbar military operations, which is of course where the battle is focusing. It is a key

Iraqi province that is currently mostly controlled by ISIS.

A number of other military personnel were also killed, but the exact number has not yet been revealed.

And still to come here on News Stream, this NASA robot is built to save lives. We'll show you why it can be better than humans in disaster

relief missions. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PLEITGEN: Welcome back everyone. And U.S. President Barack Obama returns to New Orleans in the coming hours to mark strides 10 years after

Hurricane Katrina. The president is expected to tour neighborhoods and meet with families still recovering from the devastation there.

He's also due to give remarks praising the rebuilding efforts of the hard hit Louisiana city.

The storm caused massive destruction and killed more than 1,800 people when it ripped through the Gulf region in the summer of 2005.

Now, when disasters happen, every human life matters, of course. But it isn't always easy to figure out where survivors are trapped under

rubble, for instance, and sometimes it's simply too dangerous for rescuers to get to where they are.

This is where scientists are trying to put robots and drones to work. CNN's Rachel Crane has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLE EDENBERG, ROBOTICS ENGINEER: I think that robots are going to become part of the training program for the people that risk their lives

and go into these situations.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This ape-like simian inspired four limbed robot developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory JPL is

groundbreaking and built for disaster response.

EDENBERG: So, begin able to send something like robo simian into a disaster environment means that we can go into a situation in which it was

simply too risky to send a human and do something.

Things that a human would be able to do, but couldn't because of some sort of risk.

CRANE: Named after an ape from the Jungle Book, King Louie has seven cameras, or eyes, for all around vision, allowing him to generate a 3D map.

And how many different kinds of like maneuvers can this thing make?

EDENBERG: basically anything you can imagine.

ROBIN MURPHY, DIRECTOR: They need to start recording on the camera if they are not already.

CRANE: Disaster robotics are doctor Robin Murphy's specialty, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones.

MURPHY: Now we're seeing a big focus on UAVs, because those are really good for floods and what we call wide area searches, things like

earthquakes and hurricanes.

Hurricane Katrina was a big one, the Haiti earthquake, the Thailand flooding.

CRANE: Murphy's team has helped in more than 46 disasters. And UAV technology is advancing with longer battery power, longer flight times and

better images.

Drones are playing a huge role in the aftermath of natural disasters.

And then there's this.

JIM LUX: So, this is something that could detect an unconscious victim. One of the interesting cases in Katrina was they had people who

had climbed up into their attics as the flood waters rose and then there's no way to get out of the attic. FINDER can see people's heartbeats through

the roof. And so if you had a finder in a boat outside you would know which houses have somebody trapped in the attack. You can go and cut

through the roof and rescue them.

CRANE: Jim Lux is the mastermind behind a radar based technology known as Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response. Which was

developed for Homeland Security at JPL.

You can play like a little hide and seek to see if you can detect me.

LUX: Sure, yeah.

CRANE: All right, no peeking.

OK.

I'm in place.

LUX: OK, it's processing.

CRANE: Was I detected.

LUX: Yes, you were detected.

CRANE: So you guys would come find me now.

LUX: We would come find you.

CRANE: FINDER isn't just being used in staged scenarios like this, it's actually out there in the field saving lives.

LUX: It's been out in the field as a prototype in Nepal, and it saved four lives there.

We've detected heart beats from people that are buried 30 feet deep in rubble.

CRANE: FINDER can detect heartbeats in about 30 seconds and recognizes the difference between animals and humans.

LUX: They've got lots and lots of builds that have collapsed. They wanted a way to walk down the street and figure out which buildings have

somebody in them to rescue and which ones done.

Natural disaster occur when they're going to occur, and you don't have any control over that.

Devices like FINDER are just another tool in the toolbox to respond to hem, help save lives, rescue people after the disaster has occurred.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And let's hope that new technology saves man, many more lives. Rachel Crane reporting there

On to some sports now, Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego just won a historic first gold medal for his country at the World Athletics

Championships in Beijing.

Incredibly, the 26 year old didn't train with a professional coach at all. He told CNN actually he taught himself how to throw a javelin by

turning to YouTube.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIUS YEGO, JAVELIN THROWER: I'm not so good. I just learned the (inaudible) on the YouTube.

I used to go to a site, but I wanted to be like the Andreas and (inaudible). I just go and type Andreas training using the YouTube.

When they are competing, what I just want to see is how the javelin flies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: And not only has he won the gold medal, Yego has set a new world record with his 92.72 meter toss.

And that is it for CNN News Stream. I am Fred Pleitgen, but stay tuned. World Sport with Kate Riley is coming up right now.

END