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The Olympics` Role in Unifying Rival Nations; A New Search for MH- 370; The Loss of a Secret Spacecraft

Aired January 11, 2018 - 04:00   ET

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


CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: This is CNN 10 and I`m Carl Azuz. Wherever you`re watching, thank you for taking the time for our show.

North and South Korea are working toward reducing tensions on their shared peninsula. On Tuesday, the two sides held face to face talks for the first

time in more than two years and after a day of negotiations, North Korea agreed to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South

Korea, and to continue holding talks with its southern neighbor.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in says his goal was to, quote, resolve the North Korean nuclear problem and solidify peace during his term. He

recently discussed his concerns that the international pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons could raise tensions and cause

unintended fighting. But President Moon also said that U.S. President Donald Trump, quote, deserves big credit for bringing about the inter-

Korean talks as they could be the result of U.S.-led sanctions and pressure on North Korea.

President Trump has said this in a tweet last week when North and South Korea reestablished communications with each other and agreed to hold

talks. A North Korean government-run newspaper criticized the American leader for, quote, boasting of diplomatic success.

The U.S. is an ally of South Korea and those two countries regularly hold military drills together. They say they`re practicing defensive maneuvers,

but North Korea says they`re practiced for an invasion.

The exercises are not happening right now, though. The U.S. and South Korea suspended the drills for as long as the two Koreas are holding talks

and as long as the Olympics are taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: They say that sports and politics shouldn`t mix. But this week`s breakthrough talks show what can

happen when they do.

After months of escalating tension, it`s the Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea that has succeeded where diplomacy has not. But perhaps, we

shouldn`t be so surprised. Since ancient Greek times, the IOC`s so-called Olympic Truce has insured that athletes can travel in safety, too, and from

the games. And over the years, it`s influenced has been keenly felt.

North and South Korea have marched side by side at the games three times, at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics and at the Winter Olympics in Turin in

2006. During Barcelona`s Summer Olympics of 1992, which marked the end of the Cold War, Germany competed under one flag for the first time since

1964. While South Africa was invited to compete after a 32-year ban following the repeal of old apartheid laws.

There have also been times when the Olympics has been used as a political punch bag, such as the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games where

protests over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan reduced the number of participating nations to just 80.

But it`s the symbolic gesture of seeing athletes from divided nations together and the much needed message of unity it brings that reminds us

time and again of the power of sport.

Christina Macfarlane, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AZUZ: Up next, a restart in the search for a missing passenger jet in the Indian Ocean. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014. It

was flying from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, with 239 people on board. But it suddenly changed course during its trip and headed toward

the Southern Indian Ocean. Some pieces of the plane have washed up in Tanzania, an island east of the African continent.

But despite an underwater search that lasted almost three years after the plane`s disappearance, the governments of Australia, China, and Malaysia

suspended their search operations last January. They never found out what happened to the plane, but there`s new hope that the mystery will one day

be solved.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With the official government-led search into what happened to MH-370 ended about a year ago now, but now, this

U.S.-based private company called Ocean Infinity says it will pick up where those governments lift off.

The official search went over an area of 120,000 square kilometers. That was at the time where investigators believed this plane would be most

likely to be. But at the end of that search, investigators also pointed to a 25,000 square kilometer area nearby, they said that could also be an area

where this plane could be found.

That smaller area is where Ocean Infinity says it will be focusing its search. And it says that it has the technology to do so. It said it`s

different than what the governments used. It said that they had these things called autonomous underwater vehicles. That means that they`re

underwater vehicles that are not tethered to ships on the surface. Because of that, the company says that they can go deeper, collect higher quality

data and it makes their technology ideal for this search.

The search terms, the deal that they struck with the Malaysian government, this will be a 90-day search, only about three months to search this 25,000

square kilometer area and it`s on "no find, no fee" deal. Meaning that if the company doesn`t find the plane, then they`re not going to get paid by

the Malaysian government. They`re taking on the economic risks, at least to start.

And while the whole world is interested in what happened to this plane, what caused it to disappear, the people who are most interested in finding

out what happened would, of course, be the family members of this 230-plus people who disappeared when the plane itself disappeared. We reached out

to some of those family members who live here in Beijing earlier and the general theme was that they are happy that the search is continuing, but

they say there`s been a lack of transparency in this process going back years. And despite this latest development, they`re not really expecting

anything to change.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUBTITLE: Alligators at a wildfire park have been displaying a unique ability to survive winter conditions.

The Shallotte River Swamp Park in North Carolina was affected by recent frigid temperatures.

Park staff captured this video showing how the alligators cope with frozen water.

GEORGE HOWARD, PARK GENERAL MANAGER: It`s very interesting to see them poke their noses up and be able to breathe, and be perfectly fine. So,

they`re doing this as a mechanism so that if it freezes over, they could still breathe -- but just an absolute amazing survival technique.

SUBTITLE: Park officials say the alligators are in a state called brumation, which is similar to hibernation.

Their metabolisms slow down and they enter a low-energy state.

As temperature rise, park officials expect the alligators` lives to go back to normal.

HOWARD: This week looks much better, buddy. That will be in the 60s, you`ll be out in the sun, sun tanning and enjoying life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia.

What do the ISS, Ganymede and Pluto have in common?

Are they all manmade, moons, Roman gods, or satellites?

Because they all orbit a plan or the sun, these are all examples of satellites.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: There`s a mystery surrounding a U.S. space launch that apparently failed earlier this week. It involved a spacecraft named Zuma and that was

aboard a rocket from SpaceX, a private company that receives billions in funding from NASA. SpaceX has had some failures in the past, but it says

its rocket did everything right in this launch.

Not a lot is being said about Zuma, though, the spacecraft it carried because it`s classified, it`s kept secret by the U.S. government.

What officials have said is that the spacecraft did not properly separate from part of the rocket. It didn`t reach a stable orbit of earth and it`s

believed to have been lost.

The company that built Zuma won`t comment because it`s a classified mission. The U.S. Defense Department also won`t comment and SpaceX isn`t

talking about Zuma either. Several news outlets are reporting that Zuma was probably a type of spy satellite.

(MUSIC)

AZUZ: Enzo Coccia is a master pizza chef. Could his job one day be threatened by RoDyMan. He is not a master pizza chef, but Mr. Coccia was

brought in to train the robot by wearing motion sensors that the machine mimicked.

This was part of a multimillion dollar university project. Its goal is to show that robots can be taught tasks that required dexterity, such as

needing dough or lifting the pie into a brick oven.

Will the idea rain supreme? Maybe robots can be trained to pepperoni a pie with toppings, sprinkled a little Caesar dressing and bake up the flavor

DiGiorno nice and hot.

But will the domino effect send Papa John packing? Not as far as we can Cici.

I`m Carl Azuz and that`s CNN 10.

END