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Rebel Fighters Claim New Ceasefire Deal; Duterte Admits He Killed Suspects as Mayor; Yahoo Data from One Billion Accounts Likely Stolen; Trump Talks Jobs, Innovation with Tech Leaders; Prosecution and Defense Rest in Dylann Roof Trial; Singapore's Keys to Top Education. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired December 15, 2016 - 00:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:00:09] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.

Ahead this hour --

Confusion and chaos in Aleppo a day after a ceasefire collapsed. It remained unclear if a new deal will go into effect to evacuate thousands of civilians still trapped in the war zone.

Job offense -- Donald Trump summons the titans of the tech world, many who were highly critical of the President-Elect during the campaign.

And what could be the largest hack in history -- a billion Yahoo accounts have been breached.

Hello everybody. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause. The first hour of NEWSROOM L.A. starts right now.

The original ceasefire in Aleppo lasted less than a day but opposition fighters say they have a new deal. But it's not entirely clear if the Syrian government has agreed to stop the fighting and allow thousands of civilians to leave. Meanwhile the Syrian army launched an offensive on Wednesday to retake one of the last neighborhoods still under rebel control.

Jomana Karadsheh is live in Amman, Jordan with more on this. So Jomana -- there does seem to be a lot of confusion right now about where the ceasefire stands. Will it go ahead? What do we know at the moment?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well John -- the first part of this deal which is the ceasefire does seem to have gone into effect late last night according to people on the ground. They're saying that the situation turned into calm. But of course, the most critical part of this is the evacuations as you mentioned. And we're going to have to wait and see if that happens.

This is such a fragile deal. And as we saw about 24 hours ago it was -- it didn't take much for it to go from ceasefire to all out confrontation in (inaudible) bombardment by both sides. So many different parties involved, so complicated. We're going to have to wait and see what happens in the next few hours with these evacuations -- John.

VAUSE: Ok. Jomana -- we'll get back to you in a moment. Thousands of civilians who have been under siege in eastern Aleppo for months thought it would all be over by now. That was until the original ceasefire unraveled within hours.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen continues our coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: On a day that was supposed to see calm and a ceasefire, instead heavy fighting, mortar and artillery fire and war planes dropping bombs. The civilians in the last rebel enclave in Aleppo once again fearing for their lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A missile just fell on the roof of my building. And now the people who are (inaudible) have to run for their lives again.

PLEITGEN: This was supposed to be the day that trapped and wounded citizens and the rebels were going to evacuate with a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey. Buses were already lined up when it all fell apart and once again the blame game started.

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, TURKISH PRESIDENT (through translator): Assad's government is brazenly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Aleppo. Everyone should see the truth including those who support him.

PLEITGEN: Opposition activists spoke of many casualties on their side, blaming the regime while the Syrian government said rebel shelling killed several in areas controlled by them as well.

In an interview with Russian TV Syrian President Bashar al Assad said his forces would only accept a rebel surrender.

And so instead of an end to their nightmare the tired, weak and traumatized in the rebel enclave live in fear once again. Anger not only at Russia and the Syrian government but at the West as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole world let us down and we couldn't (inaudible) to help our people. Now you can't help us. You can't help us anymore.

PLEITGEN: The U.N. has called for an immediate halt to the fighting in Aleppo as they have for years with little success. But with every hour that passes and every shell that's fired, the prospect for an end to the carnage in Aleppo fades a little more.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN -- Beirut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Here in Los Angeles, I'm joined by Lucy derTavitian, journalist covering the Middle East and Jomana Karadsheh is back with us from Amman, Jordan.

So Jomana -- first to you, after this first ceasefire deal collapsed hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. They're placing the blame for this collapse specifically on Tehran.

This is the demonstration.

So Jomana -- it does seem that Iran imposed last-minute conditions. Do you know exactly what the Iranians were demanding?

[00:05:04] KARADSHEH: Well, this is what we were hearing from opposition sources yesterday -- John. As you know, Iran is the main backer of the Assad regime. There are troops on the ground. There's Iranian militias, the Iranian-backed Iraqi and Lebanese militias have played a key role in turning around the situation on the ground in favor of the Assad regime.

And as we understand, according to these opposition sources, they say that Iran was unhappy with this deal brokered by Turkey, agreed on between Russia and the opposition. And they say that they have their own terms. Amongst them was there are two towns -- these are Shia enclaves that are in Idlib Province. They have been encircled. They have been under siege by rebel forces and that the Iranians wanted the evacuation of their own fighters, medical evacuation of the civilians, also to take place from these two towns Al-Fu'ah and Kafriya.

So we're going to have to wait and see how this deal came about again and if there were any concessions made to these reported Iranian demands -- John.

VAUSE: Lucy, Syria's dictator Bashar al Assad, he was interviewed by Russian television. He, much like the Iranians rejected this ceasefire deal. He seemed very unhappy with it. This is what the president said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): There will be no pause because this only happens in an area in which terrorists say that they are prepared to hand in their weapons or leave the area. Only then that military operations can stop.

Operations do not stop during negotiations because we do not trust the terrorists because they often say something and do the opposite. They used to ask for ceasefires only to strengthen their positions and obtain supplies consisting of weapons, ammunitions et cetera. That's why we do not allow that. Only when we agree to something specific can we do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Clearly it's very difficult to know exactly what's going on within the regime in Damascus. But at this point, do we know if the Syrian regime has agreed to the terms? LUCY DERTAVITIAN, JOURNALIST COVERING THE MIDDLE EAST: What Syrian television was reporting about this morning, our time -- it should tomorrow evening, their time was that they have agreed and they're looking forward to what the Turks and the Russians have been able to negotiate with the rebels and they're pretty confident that the East of Aleppo will be cleared by this morning, their time.

VAUSE: But clearly these things seem to be changing almost on a minute by minute business.

DERTAVITIAN: All the time -- absolutely. I think the important key here is to see what Iran is going to do because from what we understand it was as your --

VAUSE: Jomana.

DERTAVITIAN: Jomana just mentioned, Iran has played a key factor because the first ceasefire that collapsed, it's been understood that the reason why it collapsed is because the Iranians and the Russians couldn't really come into agreement as far as to how they should evacuate east Aleppo.

VAUSE: Ok. Jomana -- to you, we've seen deals like this one in Aleppo before where the rebels negotiate a pull-out from a certain area. There are often delays, there are new demands, there are new conditions which have to be negotiated. There are false starts so Aleppo really is no different from what we've seen before.

KARADSHEH: Well it's not unusual to see delays in these sort of what has been described as these surrender agreements. We have seen that happen in parts of the Damascus suburbs where similar deals have happened to those deals were locally-brokered. These were deals between the Syrian regime and the opposition where we've seen fighters and civilians who have been trapped in these areas evacuated and moved out into other parts of the country like Idlib Province.

Of course, it's a very complicated situation especially if you look at Aleppo right now -- John. You were talking about so many different groups on the ground that are involved. This is not just one party fighting the other. If you look on the regime side, you're looking at so many different militias and as we have heard, it is being blamed on the Iranians and the Iranian-backed militias yesterday with this deal falling apart.

But of course, both sides in a case like this yesterday we heard trading accusations, blaming the other side for breaking this ceasefire. So it's a very, very fragile deal and it's a very complex situation on the ground -- John.

VAUSE: And Lucy, as you say, you know, Turkey played a key role in brokering this deal with the Russians. The country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan brokered this deal but he's also calling for more international help. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERDOGAN (through translator): We have taken all necessary measures to deliver aid to our sisters and brothers rescued from Aleppo. I call on the United Nations, where are you? We are ready to give all kinds of support and we will. But a humanitarian corridor is needed.

That is why we make efforts. We are fully prepared for those who may come to Turkey along with those who will go to Idlib. If they come to Turkey, we are ready to embrace them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[00:10:00] VAUSE: A U.N. spokesman did say that they are standing by ready to help but they need security guarantees from the Assad government to go into those areas. They're not getting those security guarantees. It's too dangerous and this is leading to accusations that Assad is using humanitarian aid almost as a weapon of war.

DERTAVITIAN: And the other side is accusing the same. I mean if you listen to Syrian television or if you listen to even the civilians or people in western Aleppo, they're accusing the other side of doing the same thing. I mean Syrian television has refugees running out of eastern Aleppo kissing the journalist and obviously these are journalists who work for the Syrian television and basically praising Assad saying that it was the rebels that wouldn't allow them to leave.

You know, when it comes to Syria there are so many different players on the ground that we really can't -- really, really trust the narratives. We don't really know what's happening. It's been so politicized that I think we have to be -- at this moment we just -- we have to be careful as far as what conclusions we really jump to.

VAUSE: Right. Sure, absolutely. But you mentioned Syrian state-run television. They are reporting this is as a liberation, if you like. There are Syrian people celebrating, we are seeing that being played out on the airwaves. I want to play a quick view of exactly -- now it's being reported by their nightly news anchors. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE ANCHOR (through translator): Our viewers, we just watched this report by Shadi Halal (ph) which unfortunately shows civilians suffering torture at the hands of the terrorists. The civilians were besieged by the terrorists. We thank God that this man is now safe. He was freed by the Syrian Arab army as they were doing their patriotic duty liberating civilians at the grip of the terrorists in areas brought under siege by the terrorists. The Syrian army are saving the civilians from the extreme pain which the terrorists are inflicting on them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The critics say that it's pure propaganda --

DERTAVITIAN: Propaganda.

VAUSE: -- put out by the government. DERTAVITIAN: Absolutely. First of all, every television station in the Middle East basically has the same rhetoric. It's almost as if it's a culture of the region to cover news in this way. But, of course, it's propaganda.

But part of it is also you are seeing a lot of people seeing eastern Aleppo not just with this -- within the last 72 hours but even earlier where they are praising Assad. You do have all of west Aleppo that's celebrating tonight.

I spoke to someone earlier in western Aleppo today and they're celebrating. They think that this is truly the beginning of the end.

VAUSE: There's always two sides to a story.

DERTAVITIAN: Always.

VAUSE: In Syria's case there are many sides to the story.

DERTAVITIAN: Many sides to the story.

VAUSE: Lucy -- thank you for being with us. We know you'll come back us next hour. And Jomana Karadsheh in Amman -- thank you as well.

We'll catch up next hour with both of you. Thank you.

Well, the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte admits he killed suspected criminals while he was mayor of Davao City. Nearly 6,000 people allegedly linked to the drug trade have died in police operations or vigilante killings since he took office. That was just six months ago.

At a dinner on Monday, Mr. Duterte described how he took lives to encourage police to do the same.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODRIGO DUTERTE, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: But in Davao I used to do it personally just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can't you?

And then I go around Davao with a motorcycle or the big bike and I would just patrol the streets and looking for trouble also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: President Duterte also talked about using more than the recommended dose of a powerful drug to relieve severe pain after a bad fall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUTERTE: It's a painkiller that's being used by patients with cancer. I was only given a fourth of that square thing. There was a time that if I put two -- but not no more because, of course, my doctor learned that I was using the whole patch because I felt better. When he knew it, he blew his top and he said stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Ministers in his cabinet say the president is in good health after he did in fact say he may not live to complete his six-year term.

A short break. When we come back Donald Trump meeting with tech leaders. We'll tell you what he's promising them and asking in return.

Also Yahoo says there has been another massive security breach, likely the largest hack ever.

And later this hour, the same country has been turning out top math and science students for a decade. We'll tell you how they're doing it on a budget.

[00:19:31] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, AMS METEOROLOGIST: What a few hours across portions of the northern United States. Coldest air in place in about two years' time for portions of Illinois, on into the state of Wisconsin and Minnesota. These high temperatures will struggle to reach anywhere close to the freezing mark the next couple of days.

And it's a one-two blast of arctic air. One of them swoops up towards the northeastern United States. A second one enters on a western periphery here so a lot of that cold air wants to spill back in towards places around the western plains and also parts of the south as well.

And notice the trend. For places like New York City, high temperatures of minus 4, notice how quickly normality returns there at 15 degrees while Washington D.C. minus 5, minus 2 before the double digits come back into the positive territory. But lake effect snow cranking up across portions of the Great Lakes here as tremendous cold air goes over relatively warm waters across that region.

And on towards the western United States, the storm there where most of the action actually originates from is wide open. It will continue to bring in wet weather around the western U.S. and the National Weather Service highlighting the map like a Christmas tree of all sorts of colors associated with winter weather advisories and warnings and also alerts across the region.

And notice the flooding concern -- very high. Some of these areas could pick up almost a foot of rainfall into the highest elevations of northern California. Of course, you transition that into the Sierra Nevada and tremendous water resources in the way of fresh snow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Is there a reason to change your online passwords? Yahoo says it's been the victim of yet another massive security breach. This one is thought to be separate from a hack announced about three months ago. More than a billion accounts could be affected.

CNN's Samuel Burke has details.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: Let's just pause on that one billion number for a moment. That likely makes this the largest hack in the history of the Internet. This breach dates back to 2013 and Yahoo believes an unauthorized third party, as they're calling, stole user data and they have included names, e-mail addresses and passwords.

This breach does not include credit card data or bank account information. Now if you have a sigh of relief that financial information wasn't part of the hack, not so fast. Remember you can change your credit card numbers but you can't change information like your date of birth, you're likely not going to change your name and hackers can use all that information to try and get in to your other online accounts.

Now affected users will likely be required to change their password, something that every user of Yahoo may want to do immediately instead of waiting for that notification.

Now, this may put a question mark over Verizon's $4.8 billion deal to buy Yahoo. In a statement Verizon says "As we've said all along we will continue to evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation. We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusion."

Even if the deal does go on it could go for a much lower price.

[00:20:00] Samuel Burke, CNN -- London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: American consumers can expect to see higher mortgage rates and car loan payments. The U.S. Federal Reserve raised short-term interest rates on Wednesday by a quarter of a point. It's only the second hike in the past decade. Fed Chair Janet Yellen says that the economy is picking up and will continue to grow. Wall Street though wasn't happy. The Dow losing 118 points keeping it from the 20,000 milestone for at least one more day.

Now to the latest developments in the Trump transition beginning with some post-campaign fence mending. Donald Trump held a roundtable discussion with the heavy hitters from the tech world including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple. It's a turnaround after the tensions between Trump and the industry during the campaign.

Then the President-Elect says hey let's stay in touch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: You call my people, you call me. It doesn't make any difference. We have no formal chain of command around the area --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining me now Democratic strategist Matthew Littman and CNN political commentator John Phillips a talk radio host, political columnist for the "Orange County Register". Guys -- thanks for being here.

MATTHEW LITTMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Thank you.

VAUSE: It is strange. Out of everyone who got invited to big get- together, Twitter was left out. The CEO Jack Dorsey was not invited. I've seen reports it's because during the campaign, his company reportedly refused to approve a "crooked Hillary". Trump spokesman Sean Spicer denied this tweeting -- oddly enough -- "another example of false, reprehensible, pathetic tabloid faux journalism".

John to you -- the problem though is that given Trump's record, this report seems more likely than not, doesn't it?

JOHN PHILLIPS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well his invitation must have got lost in the snail mail. He should have tweeted him a message. Clearly it's Trump favorite Web site that he spends all of his time on. So I don't know why he wasn't there.

But I think this meeting is a good thing because as we've seen with what happened with Yahoo today, with the billion accounts that were breached, as we've seen what's happened with Sony and the e-mail hacking scandal that happened there by the North Koreans and the Chinese, what happened to the DNC, what happened to John Podesta, this is clearly going to be a recurring problem in the future.

This was an industry that did not politically back him. Peter Thiel is the only one I can think of who publicly got Donald Trump. So they're going to need to mend fences so that Washington, D.C. can work together with Silicon Valley to take care of what is clearly going to be a big problem in the 21st century.

VAUSE: Matt.

LITTMAN: John managed to mention all that hacking without mentioning the Russians. But we'll get to that later probably.

PHILLIPS: Yes.

LITTMAN: But here's the thing with the tech companies. What the tech companies want, number one is tax repatriation. They want to be able to bring their money overseas at a lower tax rate. That's their biggest priority. If Donald Trump can do that for them they'll develop a much more friendly relationship.

Number two, they want more H1b visas. They want to bring over highly- qualified immigrants to work at the tech companies and if he could help with that also, great.

Those are the big issues for the tech companies. If Trump can do that, if he wants to lower the corporate tax rate -- then that relationship will get much, much better.

VAUSE: It's all about the billions because, you know, they did wimp out on, you know, some of the big issues which they raised during the campaign like net neutrality. No one talked about that. No one talked about a Muslim database, for example. So, you know, these CEOs brave in the campaign, they kind of cowered in the face of defeat.

LITTMAN: Yes. But again, the biggest issues for them -- the biggest issue is going to be that tax rate.

VAUSE: Right.

LITTMAN: If they're able to bring over billions of dollars from overseas, a company like Apple, then that's the biggest thing for them.

PHILLIPS: For the American people this is a national security issue. Having foreign espionage attack American companies or American political parties, American elections -- that's something that needs to be taken care of. And there --

LITTMAN: Do you think there should be a bipartisan hearing about that second thing.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: The meeting went about 90 minutes. The President-Elect really was laying it on the table. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm here to help you folks do well. And you're doing well right now and I'm very honored by the bounce. They're all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me at least for a little bit. But we're going to have to try and have that bounce continue and perhaps even more importantly we want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. There's nobody like you in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Which brings us to the last shot there.

What were the Trump children doing in this meeting -- John, especially, you know, the two sons Don Jr. and Eric? Aren't they meant to be running the company? Isn't there meant to be a firewall?

PHILLIPS: Well, he's still President-Elect Trump. He's not President Trump. And the kids will be running the company. Donald Trump will be running the country. So there is going to be a separation between the two.

But look, this is a very close family. This is a family where the kids work for the family business, where they sit around the dinner table and they talk about business, they talk about these things. This is not something that's uncommon. And it's not something also that's uncommon in the world of politics. You look at the Kennedys -- what happened with all the relatives that sat around and worked in the business.

VAUSE: I think a certainly law was put into place after that. But --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIPS: There was involvement with the Clinton Foundation.

[00:24:59] LITTMAN: Well the Clinton Foundation is a lot different than the Trump businesses. And there are laws against accepting gifts from foreign governments while you're the President of the United States. We've already seen that people want to use the Trump Hotel from foreign countries, possibly to curry favor also.

It's really hard to say that the children aren't going to make money off of what they're hearing about from these tech companies. I mean that is -- Trump talked about draining the swamp. How is that not the swamp?

VAUSE: Ok. Speaking of the Trump family -- Ivanka Trump, we're being told that she will actually have an office in the East Wing usually reserved for the first lady. Matt -- that's not weird, is it?

PHILLIPS: Well, I mean I think Trump's wife is going to be living in New York --

VAUSE: Raising their son Barron.

LITTMAN: Right, right. And actually I think Ivanka Trump, if they're going to have somebody there, Ivanka Trump is a pretty good spokesperson and I think she'll actually do a pretty fine job at that. That's the least of my concerns given the cabinet appointments that we've seen.

Some of these people who are being appointed to these cabinet roles will have to go through these hearings, have spoken even about dissolving the agencies that they're going to be running. I think that's a much bigger issue than Ivanka Trump.

VAUSE: This seems to be (inaudible) -- she's more a Democrat, you know, if you listen to what she says.

PHILLIPS: Well, she's from New York. But the role of the First Lady is generally apolitical.

VAUSE: Right.

PHILLIPS: This is a bipartisan issue. If Hillary Clinton were to have been elected, my guess is that Chelsea Clinton would have probably served as first lady in that particular role.

VAUSE: Well, we will never know.

There will be another break from tradition. It seems like the daily White House briefings which have been, you know, a regular feature for so very long may be going away. This is what Reince Priebus, incoming chief of staff, had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REINCE PRIEBUS, TRUMP CHIEF OF STAFF: I think that it's important that we look at all of those traditions that are great, but quite frankly, as yo8u know, don't really make news and are just sort of mundane, boring episodes. Even looking at things like the daily, you know, the daily White House briefing from the Press Secretary, I mean there's a lot of different ways that things can done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: One way is just to follow the tweets every day.

LITTMAN: Well, I don't think they want to be answerable to the press. I mean Donald Trump has not held a press conference in many, many months. And I don't think he wants to answer tough questions from the press. And I think given all these conflicts of interest, given the fact that Donald Trump, I don't think, could be able to fulfill any of his promises -- I'm sure you'd agree with me -- that he's not going to be able to fulfill a lot of his promises, I don't think they want to be out in front of the press every day.

PHILLIPS: My guess is he's floating a trial balloon here to see what the reaction is. And these things, frankly, do change overtime. The State of the Union address was initially just something that was written and delivered to Congress, then it became something that happened before a joint session of Congress. The weekly radio address is something that's a fairly recent invention. So --

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: (inaudible) -- radio.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: That's the best you got.

Oh gosh. Ok. See you next hour.

PHILLIPS: Sounds good.

VAUSE: Thank you very much.

A short break. When we come back, some very emotional testimony in the trial of a man accused of murdering nine worshipers in a racist rampage. Next you will hear new audio from the 911 calls from inside the church.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:31:35] VAUSE: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. The headlines this hour:

(HEADLINES) VAUSE: It was an emotional day in the trial of the accused Charleston killer Dylann Roof. The prosecution and the defense have now rested. Prosecutors say Roof has confessed to opening fire inside this church in South Carolina a year and a half ago, in a rampage of racism. The final witness against Roof had some of the most moving and powerful testimony of the trial.

Polly Sheppard only survived because she says Roof wanted her to tell his story. And now the audio recording of the 911 call from inside the church has been released. We have to warn you, you may find it disturbing.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

POLLY SHEPPARD: He's coming, he's coming, he's coming. Please.

911 OEPRATOR: OK, ma'am, are you able to -- if he's coming, I need you to be as quiet as possible. Is there something that you can hide under.

SHEPPARD: I'm under the table.

911 OPERATOR: Did you see him at all?

SHEPPARD: Yes, he's a young 21-year-old white dude.

911 OPERATOR: OK.

SHEPPARD: Please, we've got some people very hurt. Please.

911 OPERATOR: Yes, ma'am. And you said that -- were you able to see the gun? Do you know what kind of gun it was?

SHEPPARD: No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know anything about guns.

911 OPERATOR: OK, that's OK. And where are the weapons now?

SHEPPARD: H'es got it in his hand. He's reloading.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

VAUSE: Roof's (INAUDIBLE) killed nine worshippers, and there they are. They were all killed after he was welcomed to pray with them.

CNN's Nick Valencia has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DYLANN ROOF, ACCUSED KILLER: Well, I had to do it because somebody had to do something. Because black people are killing white people every day.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over0: Over a year since his confession, Dylann Roof is standing trial. But if Roof had it his way, there would be no trial at all. Before the case the began, Roof said he was willing to plead guilty to the charges on the condition that prosecutors remove the death penalty. They refused.

Over the past week in federal court, prosecutors have punctuated their case by painting Roof is a cold-blooded calculated killer obsessed with white supremacy and hateful of blacks. They say Roof hoped to start a race war when he walked into the historically black Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015. He prayed with the Bible study group for nearly an hour before removing a .45 caliber Glock handgun and shooting nine people, some of them multiple times, even after they were already dead.

Evidence presented by prosecutors at the trial included video showing shooting target practice, parts of the more than 2,000 word manifesto, and there is also this white sheet found in his room, cut into a triangle. Investigator believe it was Roof's attempt to fashion it into a KKK hood.

The last week of the trial has been no doubt emotional. The first witness brought to the stand was Felicia Sanders, a shooting survivor forced to take a break from her recounting her gut wrenching testimony of what she saw that day in Charleston.

[00:35:03] On the first day of court, Roof's own mother suffered a heart attack at the beginning of lunch recess. There was also drama behind the scenes as well with Roof's defense. Up until two weeks ago, the 22-year-old said he wanted to represent himself. Now he has changed his mind, but only for the guilt phase of the trial. During the penalty phase, he's expected to be his own defense.

It's a surprise, considering his current attorney, David Bruck, is an acclaimed death penalty lawyer who may not be able to use his skills if Roof keeps his current plans.

For those washing the case, the horrors of what happened last July lie in the facts. Roof has sat and listened the whole time, expressionless, emotionless, showing no remorse for the massacre he's accused of.

Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: In recent weeks, students in Singapore have been ranked the best in the world in maths and science in not one but two major international assessments, continuing a decade long run at or near the top. In the most recent assessment, Singapore, Japan, Estonia, Taiwan and Finland made up the top five. In fact, compared to the U.S., which ranked 25, students in Singapore had a level of knowledge the equivalent of almost 2 extra years of schooling.

So what is Singapore doing right? And can it be replicated in other countries? I'm looking at you, U.S. public school system.

For more, we're joined now by Professor Lee Sing Kong from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Professor, thank you for being with us. So explain to us what's happening in classrooms in Singapore which is different to many other countries in Europe and the U.S.

LEE SING KONG, VICE PRESIDENT, NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Well, thank you. Of course there are several factors contributing to the good performance of Singapore students in this international.

I wish to suggest to you four key factors that are the reasons. Firstly, Singapore's education system has a very clear end in mind. It scans the environment internationally and locally and has articulated a set of desired outcomes of education for our students when they complete their educational journey in the schools.

So it spells out clearly what are the attributes that we want to equip our students with so that they're adaptable and be relevant in the 21st Century. So this is the clear end in mind.

Secondly, we explain and develop (ph) a very coherent set of curricula to enable our students to achieve these desired outcomes of education.

[00:40:09] In reviewing the curricula, it took a very holistic approach, look at how new topics could be added, and some existing topics could be taken out, so that the curriculum will not be overbloated such that the teachers were pressed for time to complete them.

So with the coherent -- with a coherent curriculum, our teachers would be able to comfortably deliver them, and at the same time having time to develop innovative teaching practices that can engage the students in the process all learning.

Now the third factor is that the Ministry of Education invests very heavily in building up a quality teaching farce as well as a good team of school leaders. Now, they invested heavily in terms of resources to attract the best teachers -- the candidates into the teaching profession, and then support them through a very rigorous training program at the national institute of education, which is housed within the Nanyang Technological University.

VAUSE: Professor, if I could just interrupt you just very quickly, because we're just a little short on time. But I do want to get you to another question, because what we noticed also about is Singapore is that there is a huge expenditure also on private tutors, almost $700 million a year. It's been sort of described as an educational arms race with children in preschool receiving tutoring. So how important is that in this equation?

LEE: Well, this is an indication of the strong support of parents for the children's education. But (INAUDIBLE) results show very clearly those who have this additional tuition that they receive, the results show very quickly that there's no significant impact on their achievements and their performance. This is very much reviewed by (INAUDIBLE) tests. VAUSE: Also there's a debate about how much money should be spent on education. The US spends a lot more, about 6 percent of GDP, Singapore about half that amount. So would you say money doesn't always get a better result?

LEE: I think while budget quantums (ph) are important in education investment, I think what is more important is that -- where do you invest the budget in? I think in Singapore, the investment is very heavily on building up a quality teaching force, and a good team of school leaders to lead the teaching and learning in the most innovative ways in the schools.

VAUSE: OK, Professor, we'll leave it there, but some very good points. Have absolutely stated goals, invest wisely, good teachers. Seems pretty simple to me.

Professor, thank you for being with us, sir.

LEE: Thank you very much.

VAUSE: OK, well, two Japanese journalists got a nerve-wracking reception when they went to interview the Russian president Vladimir Putin.

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VAUSE: Mr. Putin's dog kind of scared the hell out of them. And four-year-old Akita is named Yume (ph). The Russian president gave Yume a treat, had him do some tricks. There he is.

I think the journalists were right to take some caution around Yume.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause. "WORLD SPORT" is up next. You're watching CNN.

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