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NEWS STREAM
Syrian Refugees In Lebanon Surpass 1 Million Mark; Malaysian Prime Minister Flies To Australia; Afghan Forces Prepare To Secure Presidential Elections; Chile Hit With Powerful 7.6 Magnitude Aftershock; Amazon Unveils Fire TV; Ukraine Claims Russian Security Forces Helped Plan Protest Crackdown
Aired April 3, 2014 - 8:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: They are desperately seeking a safe haven from three long years of civil war. They risked their lives fleeing Syria carrying whatever they can to neighboring countries. The lucky ones make it to refugee camps.
And across the region, more than 2.5 million Syrians have registered with the United Nations refugee agency. And today, a devastating milestone, the United Nations says the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has passed the 1 million mark. That means about one in five people in Lebanon is a registered Syrian refugee.
Now here's how the numbers have skyrocketed over time. Now two years ago, there were 18,000 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Now by this time last year that number had grown to 356,000. And now, the UNHCR warns Lebanon is stretched to the breaking point.
Now for many refugees, the struggle continues even from the relative safety of neighboring countries. Arwa Damon tells us about one women driven to an act of desperation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mariam wanted to die.
"I choose death," she says. "I choose death rather than see my children die a million times in front of me."
Words fell Mariam's husband Ahmed as he listens to the woman whose smile he fell in love with 24 years ago. Their four children, ages 13 to 22, don't want to be filmed. Three of them have a blood disease that requires a specific diet. Six months ago, the UN switched from providing aid to all refugees, to a targeted aid campaign. The family was deemed not eligible for food assistance.
"I went to them over and over. I said you must have made a mistake," Mariam says. "They lied to me. They mocked me. They shouted get out of here."
Mariam torched herself.
This is the exact spot where the incident took place in front of UNHCR's registration center for northern Lebanon. The vendors here all witnessed it happening. They said it took place very quickly, that she briefly exchanged a few words with somebody and then poured the gasoline on her head. The next thing they knew, she was a ball of flames.
The helplessness, the humiliation, it was just too much.
Sometimes, all the family had to eat were scraps of dried bread.
Mariam is saying that she feels as if her heart was burnt by the way that they were being treated even before she decided to set herself on fire, that she felt like they were all being treated like animals. She says I'm not an animal, I'm a mother, I'm a human.
She says she would plead, "I'm going to set myself on fire. Feel my pain. Feel what's in my heart. Feel that I have four children. They would laugh at me and send me away."
UN personnel at the center and guards told us she wasn't mistreated. But the UN takes these allegations very seriously and is looking into them along with also following up on the family's eligibility for reinclusion in the food aid program.
The UN is also covering all of Mariam's medical costs.
She says all she's ever done was for her children's survival.
"I worked very hard for their education."
They don't come to the hospital. She doesn't want them to see her like this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: A disturbing report of a mother so desperate for food aid. And in the time it took to bring you Arwa's report, about three new refugees have been registered in Lebanon. The UNHCR says it signs up more than one person a minute.
Arwa Damon now joins me live from a registration center in Tripoli Lebanon. And Arwa, Lebanon is a small country now. It has over 1 million Syrian refugees. How is it coping with this number?
DAMON: It's reaching a breaking point, Kristie. It's really an unsustainable situation.
Just to give you an idea, the population of Lebanon in and of itself is 4.4 million. And the fact that 1 million refugees have registered, well people will say to you that means that in reality there could be as many as 1.52 million Syrians in this country. It's putting a strain on everything -- educational, infrastructure and systems, medical.
In some communities you have more Syrians living there than Lebanese. They say things like sewage, plumbing, there's just a strain that is being put on everything. And UNHCR, along with other aid organizations, they simply don't have the funding when it comes to dealing with the refugee crisis in Lebanon, UNHCR says that it only has 14 percent -- imagine that - - 14 percent of the needed $1.89 billion to deal with just the Syrian crisis here.
So because of that lack of funding, that's why we're seeing this reallocation of funds, that's why some of the programs rather than encompassing all of the refugee population are becoming more targeted, as was the case with the food program, which is what led to Mariam's completely desperate act, which did Kristie take place in front of this very same registration center that we're at right now.
LU STOUT: And Arwa, today you've been reporting live from that registration center and seeing just a stream of Syrian refugees coming through. How many of them are children? What kind of support do child refugees need?
DAMON: Well, according to UNICEF, the most vulnerable are, of course, the children, women and children do make up the bulk of the refugee population. There are systems in place to try to provide additional support, especially for the children. There are psychological programs. There's also educational programs trying to put them into school.
But the Lebanese educational system just cannot handle the sheer volume of the numbers, plus the systems in Syria and Lebanon are also different. You do get these heartwarming stories of individual cases where people are opening up specific schools geared towards the refugee population, teaching that Syrian educational program for them, but there's also these horrific stories of children that are being forced to go to work, because of the financial burden and strain that is on the families.
The ripple effect of what's happening in Syria when it comes to the refugees and a number of other factors is quite simply difficult to grasp it is so gigantic in its magnitude. But that's why we keep hearing these pleas from the United Nations, from other aid organizations, and especially from the refugees themselves who fail to understand how it is that no one is coming to their assistance.
They can accept that on the one hand, finding a solution to the war in Syria might be difficult, that every country that's involved there has its own political agenda. What they can't understand is how it is, given the reality that the finances were in place, at least some of what they're going through, the burden of that, could at least slightly be alleviated if they only had the money, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Arwa Damon reporting live from Tripoli, Lebanon, thank you very much indeed for your reporting.
Now the exodus from Syria has only accelerated over time. And if trends continue, the UNHCR warns more than 4 million Syrians could be refugees by the end of this year. And inside Syria, more than 6.5 million people are displaced. So altogether, that would be 10.6 million people uprooted.
Now to put it in another way, that's roughly the population of greater Paris or nearly the number of people in Singapore and greater Toronto combined.
And as Arwa mentioned, the UNHCR, it needs funding to provide food and shelter, medicine, education, is trying to raise $4.2 billion, but so far it's only received 14 percent of that.
The UNHCR says just $100 can provide a months worth of diapers for 25 Syrian babies.
If you want to help, just go to donate.UNHCR.org/Syria.
Still to come right here on News Stream, in the U.S., another shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas military base -- three dead, 16 wounded. The country's largest army base is in shock.
Just one day after deadly earthquake, Chile is hit by a strong aftershock, but experts say a swift response has saved lives.
And the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, nearly a month after its disappearance, and there is still no sign of the missing plane.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: Welcome back.
Now we are learning more about Wednesday's mass shooting at Fort Hood army base and the soldier the U.S. military says carried out that rampage. Three people were killed, 60 were wounded, when officials say 34-year-old Iraq war veteran Ivan Lopez opened fire before turning the gun on himself.
Now the attack, it sent shockwaves across the nation's largest army base, still reeling from a massacre just five years ago. Now CNN's George Howell has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: We have an active currently on Fort Hood. We have multiple gunshot victims. We also have people who are escaping through windows.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tragedy strikes again. The army's largest U.S. base put on lockdown for hours as shots rang out Wednesday. The second deadliest shooting on the Fort Hood military base in Texas in nearly five years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's unreal, really unreal because in 2009 I was here and this thing happen again.
HOWELL: Authorities scramble to the scene shutting the front gates, backing up traffic, urging everyone to stay put. The lone shooter identified as specialist Ivan Lopez, an American soldier toting a 45- caliber Smith and Wesson semi-automatic handgun purchased recently.
LT. GEN. MARK MILLEY: He was undergoing behavior health and psychiatric treatment for depression and anxiety, and a variety of other psychological and psychiatric issues.
HOWELL: Dressed in combat fatigues, Lopez allegedly opened fire, killing three people and injuring more than a dozen before taking his own life after being confronted by a military police officer.
MILLEY: It was clearly heroic what she did at that moment in time. She did her job. She did exactly what we would expect of a United States Army military police.
HOWELL: Victims were airlifted to nearby hospitals.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Any shooting is troubling. Obviously this reopens the pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago.
HOWELL: Fort Hood, the sight of so much pain in 2009 when Major Nidal Hasan opened fire on base killing 13 people and injuring 32. President Obama's touching words on the events of that tragic day almost five years ago sadly relevant again.
OBAMA: So we say goodbye to those who now belong to eternity. May God bless the memory of those that we have lost.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Now that was George Howell reporting.
You're watching News Stream. And coming up next, people in Chile are on edge after another strong earthquake shakes the country. We'll explain why there may be still more to come.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)]
LU STOUT: Coming to you live from Hong Kong, you are back watching News Stream.
Now Afghanistan is facing a very critical test this weekend. Nationwide elections will be held on Saturday to choose a new president. And Afghan soldiers and police are in charge of providing security. It's part of a changing of the guard, as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw.
CNN's Anna Coren shows us how Afghan forces are being brought up to speed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNA COREN, CNN INTENRATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Behind mud walls in a dusty Afghan province, a tactical operation is underway. Intel suggests insurgents are hiding out in the village and these Afghan commandos are here to hunt down the enemy.
This isn't a real mission, but part of the training once instructed by U.S. special forces, now Afghans are calling the shots.
As the U.S. prepares withdraw troops by the end of the year, the focus is turned to training, advising and assisting the Afghan security forces. And nowhere is that more effective than at Camp Commando on the outskirts of Kabul where a seven year partnership is now producing Afghanistan's elite soldiers.
SAMSOOR EHDIMAN, AFGHAN COMMANDO: When I see the American special force, I got an idea to be a special force of Afghanistan force to help our people and our country.
COREN: There are 10,500 Afghan commandos that proudly wear the red beret. And Major General Kareem (ph) is their leader with nine battalions across the country are taking the fight to the insurgency. And his U.S. partner, Colonel Brian Petit couldn't be prouder.
COL. BRIAN PETIT, COMMANDO SOAG: These guys have done the hard fighting. They have an incredible track record of fighting, winning in some of the toughest places. If there's a campaign or a battle in this country that was hard fought, commandos have had their fingerprints on that.
COREN: Regardless of the achievements, they're still heavily reliant on the U.S. for air support, heavy weaponry and intelligence gathering -- all under threat after President Karzai refused to sign the bilateral security agreement, allowing an enduring U.S. presence post-2014.
That critical decision has been left up to his successor who voters will elect at the polls on Saturday despite threats of violence by the Taliban.
Well, there's no denying the Afghan commandos have become a force the public can be proud of, they still need America's help. And there's a firm belief within the top brass of both the Afghan and U.S. military that without this partnership, Afghanistan could become a safe haven for terrorists once again.
And while America's longest war has become widely unpopular in the U.S., words of advice to a war weary country.
PETIT: For the people back home, I would just have them remember what they felt on September 11, 2001. The attacks on the U.S. emanated out of this country, not from this country, but from international terrorists that found this to be a hospitable place. That could happen again.
COREN: And it's these soldiers on the ground that will be fighting to try to make sure that doesn't happen.
Anna Coren, CNN, Kabul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: A strong aftershock set off nerves across northern Chile just one day after a major earthquake hit the same region. The 7.6 magnitude aftershock rocked the port city of Iquique and surrounding areas. It struck just before midnight local time on Wednesday. Again, a tsunami warning was issued, but it was lifted earlier today.
Now most residents of Iquique have now regained access to water and power. And before this latest aftershock, children had been expected to return to school today.
Now six people were killed in Tuesday's 8.2 magnitude quake. Experts say strict building codes and a swift emergency response helped prevent larger casualty numbers.
Now let's get more now on the aftershocks there in the region with Mari Ramos. She joins me from the world weather center -- Mari.
MARI RAMOS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kristie. I have to agree with that.
The strict building codes in Chile really did save lives this time around and the emergency preparedness also crucial, the way people not only stayed calm and knew what to do when the earthquake -- these two earthquakes back to back were striking, but also the fact that they were moving away from the shoreline. If those waves, especially with the 8.2 quake, would have gotten to the shoreline, as they did, and people would have been there, I think we would have seen a much larger loss of life.
This is the latest information from the latest earthquake, 7.6, the one you mentioned. It was a bit deeper than the last one, but it was over land. And this changes things a little bit, because first of all one of the things that happened is the shaking felt much, much stronger for people this time around. Even though it was a lesser magnitude, it was over land near more populated areas, particularly the city of Iquique, those images that you just showed us of people again leaving their homes.
This map right over here shows us the shaking that was experienced. So we some strong to very strong and even borderline severe for some of these areas. And remember that buildings had already been shaken 24 hours before from that other earthquake, from the 8.2. So there was a concern that some of these buildings may not be able to withstand as much as they normally would.
But fortunately, there were no major damage reported.
Now the dots that you see here, each one of those is an aftershock, each one of those is a quake in itself. The larger one, of course, is this one. The larger the dot, the larger the intensity of the quake. They're color-coded by time to this one and this one, the two that are in red happened within the last hour. And unfortunately, because these quakes are so large, we can expect hundreds of aftershocks.
I told you about this yesterday. The original quake was around an 8.0. You could expect at least one quake that would be in the 7.0 range. Hopefully that's the one that we saw already and we don't have to deal with that any more.
But then you will have to see about 10 quakes that would be in the 6.0 range, about 100 in the 5.0 range, and about 1,000 in the 4.0 range.
And these could go on not just for days and weeks, but even a year from now we could still be seeing some aftershocks from that quake.
Moving on, let's head to the other side of the world and talk about the weather and the air quality in particular across parts of the UK.
This is a picture from London. And yes it has been hard to breath in many cases. The air quality affecting much of the southern part of the UK. It was at 160, I think, the number just a little while ago in the last hour or so. That would be right in the unhealthy category.
It is some of the worst air quality that they've had so far this year -- in actually quite a long time.
I want to talk to you about the sources of pollution. We talked about this before, especially when we were talking about eastern China, remember, but this is a problem that's worldwide -- transportation one of the main things, factory emissions, heating, construction, agricultural emissions and forest fires, and something we don't normally think about residential cooking and residential heating is a huge source of pollution across these areas.
Now, there are also natural sources of air pollution. And that's something I want to add this time around, because it is something that has kind of caught the attention of across the UK right now. They're having a problem with dust particles that were wind blown and came in from the Saharan desert in Africa.
So that does tend to happen and that does add to the pollution levels, but it's not the only thing that is giving them problems, all of those other things that I mentioned before, those man-made sources, are the bigger story, I think.
Wild fires, volcanoes are also natural sources of air pollution. Livestock is another natural source of air pollution. So we have both man- made and natural sources, and these things combine to bring us the problems that we see right now.
We are expecting an improvement, though, across these areas. That area of low pressure beginning to move away, break down, and I think much better conditions expected as we head through the next couple of days, visibility should start to improve, so hopefully tomorrow, Kristie, they can breathe a little easier across the southern parts of the UK.
Back to you.
LU STOUT: All right, Mari Ramos there with the forecast and walking us through the multiple sources of pollution that are out there. Thank you, Mari.
Now, two major world figures will soon cross paths. The pope is about to meet Britain's monarch for the first time. Queen Elizabeth II is in Rome and will have a private audience with Pope Francis.
Now the queen is in Italy with her husband, the duke of Edinburgh.
Just ahead right here on News Stream, he is holding out hope Malaysia's prime minister visits the base of the international search operation for flight 370.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines.
Now there was shock and grief at the largest military base in the U.S. A soldier opened fire on Wednesday, killing three people before taking his own life. 16 people were wounded in the attack. Now the military identified the shooter as 34-year-old army specialist Ivan Lopez. The Iraq War vet had been undergoing treatment for depression and other mental health issues.
Syria's civil war is marking a somber milestone. The UN refugee agency says the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has surpassed 1 million. Now that's nearly a quarter of Lebanon's population. The UN says Lebanon now has the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.
A strong aftershock hit northern Chile late on Wednesday. It followed the 8.2 magnitude earthquake that took the lives of six people and triggered small landslides and a tsunami.
Japan has canceled its annual whale hunt off Antarctica. And the move comes days after an international court declared the killings illegal. Japan had claimed that it kills the whales for research purposes, but a court in The Hague ruled that the hunts are actually a commercial activity.
Almost four weeks after it disappeared, there is still no sign of Malaysian Airlines flight 370. The search area now covers 223,000 square kilometers. The clearest picture of the plane's path has come from satellite data. Although we know it turned off course, we still don't know exactly where it ended up.
Now in the past, satellite images of debris have provided essential clues about airline crashes.
Now CNN's Deborah Feyerick looks at just how those pictures are analyzed.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dozens of satellites from numerous countries are all trained on the Indian Ocean. But it's satellite images of the 2009 crash of the air France flight that might be key to finding the missing wreckage.
So rather than invent the wheel you're taking something that looks a lot like a wheel and shaping it for the current circumstances.
STEPHEN WOOD, CEO, ALL SOURCE ANALYSIS: With the Air France crash, well documented well photographed well cataloged, we now piece this all together. We begin to have a better story and better understanding of what we could be looking at present day.
FEYERICK: Stephen Wood spent 25 years with the CIA identifying satellite images and what they might mean. He believes analyzing data from the air France crash could speed up the search.
What is it that you as an imager can make out?
WOOD: To me, I see a very distinct shape. I see a color tone. I see something that stands out very clearly from the background.
One of the beauties of these satellites is you can actually precisely measure an object. So now we also have a size and scale that we can then backtrack against known debris that they found on the air France crash. So we're beginning to tell the story. We are putting all the forensic information together to assemble what an aircraft part looks like on top of the ocean.
FEYERICK: What is it? Wood is not sure. Though it looks remarkably like a piece of debris spotted in the Indian Ocean that is yet to be retrieved and analyzed.
Wood acknowledges there are big differences. Air France crashed in warm waters off the coast of Brazil. Malaysia flight 370 is believed to have crashed in stormy wintry waters. Air France debris was discovered almost immediately scattered over an eight-mile radius.
With so many satellite images, why haven't we been able to pick up anything that is a piece of that plane yet?
WOOD: Here's the million dollar question. Where is that plane that we need to look for? And I think that's the difficulty throughout this entire search. We don't know the where that precise location was like we did have eventually with the air France crash.
FEYERICK: It is it possible you could take an image from a satellite from the day the plane went down and layer that exact those exact coordinates over each other, sort of almost creating one of those books you had as a kid, you would flip it over and see something move across the screen. Could you do something like that?
WOOD: That is a great question. And I call it a time machine.
You're starting to see the patterns that emerge and with that kind of knowledge, you have insight or the ability to start predicting or modeling what could happen in the future.
FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Now let's get more on the search for MH370 now. Let's go straight to Paula Newton. She's standing by for us in Perth, Australia. And Paula, the ocean shield, this ship, it arrives in the search area on Friday. And of course those black box batteries, they will soon run out.
PAUL NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They will, although manufacturers say they could last a little bit longer.
The problem now is not just that that battery is going to run out, although that's a big problem, it's also the fact that they have not narrowed that search zone yet. Though, but to give you some updates. So they did move the search zone a bit further north. And I can tell you that Australian officials just releasing the information here now that the British navy -- the British Royal Navy survey ship HMS Echo has been in that northern sector searching. And they have been looking for sonic transmissions. They actually had a false alarm.
But the good news here, Kristie, is that they are out there, they are looking for those flight data recorders, trying to listen for any kind of pings that they can.
Now in the meantime here at this base earlier this morning, the Malaysian prime minister, the Australian prime minister were here to survey operations. Unfortunately, they had sobering thoughts on this mission.
You know, the Malaysian prime minister calling this the greatest mystery in aviation history and neither of them making any guarantees that they will be able to find any trace of flight 370. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NAJIB RAZAK, MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: The new refined area of search has given us new hope. And I believe the courage of the crews is more than equal to...
TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: As I say, it is a very difficult search, the most difficult in human history. But as far as Australia is concern, we are throwing everything we have at it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: The problem is what they have right now is unfortunately guesswork as to where Flight 370 may have gone down. And that's a significant problem still. We know that they continue to work on their models, continue to refine the search zone, but they've just not been able to narrow it enough -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: This is such a difficult search because of the guesswork involved here and also the challenges at sea. I mean, what are search crews up against as they go out there and try to retrieve objects in the search area?
NEWTON: Well, the weather has actually been cooperating. It's not perfect. That doesn't mean -- I mean, today they had visibility of about 10 kilometers. And that's pretty good. Fatigue is starting to set in, though. You do see in these crews again searching and searching and searching. They are trained for this. But again they really do have to spread out their shifts and make sure that they can sustain this.
I mean, you just heard Prime Minister Abbott saying that this is unprecedented in human history in terms of this kind of an aviation search. So when you try and put all those ships in the zone, you have all those aircraft flying overhead, you have a simultaneous investigation going on in Malaysia. You have authorities from the U.S., Britain, Malaysia and Australia working on that investigation. Coordination efforts also have to be synchronized.
There is a lot to challenge people here on the cite. At the same time as you heard them say they refuse to give up and will continue the search.
For families, though, they perhaps have learned now not to expect anything any time soon.
LU STOUT: That's right, investigators and officials they refused to give up. The Malaysian prime minister there in Australia saying that they will not give up until some sort of answers are found. A number of assets have been deployed here -- you know, search vessels, from ships, planes, et cetera. Paula, can you give us an idea of just the sheer number of planes and ships that are out there scouring these waters far off Perth.
NEWTON: Well, today, for instance, we had about 10 flights in the air. And we had nine ships in the zone. Now remember, the ships are there in the zone. They're not going anywhere. We also have British navy submarine HMS Tireless heading to the scene as well.
I mean, unprecedented to be actually deploying a nuclear powered submarine to the area to be able to look at this.
And also helicopters. They are quite nimble, quite dynamic in terms of trying to get there and investigate debris in certain areas if anything suspicious is spotted.
So, again, the Australians are right. When they say that in terms of the assets that have been deployed, they have a lot of what they need. The problem, what they don't have, is more of an accurate assessment of where that flight went down.
The good news is they continue to work on these models 24/7. And when they have a better model, they will have a lot more assets in the region to be able to go and search out that zone -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: All right. Paula Newton reporting live from Perth. Thank you.
Now Ukraine's government says it has evidence that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych ordered sniper attacks during anti-government protests. Now this claim, it comes in a preliminary report, which also says the crackdown was backed by Russia.
Let's get more from Karl Penhaul. He joins me live from the Ukrainian capital. And Karl, tell us more about this report from Kiev.
KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristie, that report was unveiled at a news conference this morning and very few surprises in there. In fact, a lot of the comments that were made by representatives of the security services and the Ukrainian government at that news conference had been out there already. And the comments so far firmly blame ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and members of the Berkut security services for these sniper attacks.
What it also goes into is accusing Russia's security service, the FSB, of helping to plan these attacks against the protesters and at one point in this report, it says that 32 members of Russia's FSB were flown into Ukraine to help plan this and also a Russian plane bringing in five tons of supplies, both riot control equipment, but also sniper rifles and explosives were also flown in.
Now so far 12 members of the Ukrainian security services have been detained, three of those have been formally accused of carrying out these sniper attacks so far. But there is no trace of the alleged Russian security service members who helped carry out these attacks. Part of the narrative at least from the Ukrainian government is that a lot of the evidence as well as the Russian agents were then flown out to Crimea around the time that that was being invaded by Russian and pro-Russian militias -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: And Russia knows how to retaliate. Karl, I understand that Moscow is scrapping a discount on gas prices to Ukraine?
PENHAUL: Exactly. That has been announced. Gazprom, the state run oil and gas company in Russia has ended its preferential price agreement with Ukraine. And that, in effect, means around a 40 percent rise in gas prices. Gas -- natural gas here not only being used for domestic consumption and for heating, but also by heavy industry here as well. So that is obviously likely to hit hard domestically.
But it is also a very clear sign that Russia intends to use energy as a political tool in this crisis, because don't forget yes Ukraine is dependent for around 50 percent of its energy supplies from Russia, but the whole of western Europe on average need -- brings about 30 percent of its energy requirements from Russia, and also crucially a lot of pipelines, a lot of gas lines are coming through Ukraine to transport oil and gas from Russia and the Caspian Sea to western Europe. And Russia is very conscious of that and is very aware that it has this power in its hands.
And that, according to many analysts is an explanation as to why western Europe and the United States can't really take a lot firmer economic measures or even trade measures against Russia, because it knows right now that certainly in terms of that crucial energy, that Russia is holding a lot of the cards, Kristie.
LU STOUT: And Karl, the situation at the border -- are Ukrainian troops still on high alert?
PENHAUL: Ukrainian troops are on high alert. we came back the day before yesterday from that border area. And we saw Ukrainian troops digging in about six or seven kilometers back from the border, setting up what they said was the first line of defense, digging in armored vehicles and also tanks and anti-aircraft guns. But the problem is that a lot of the equipment that the Ukrainian military has is aging Soviet era equipment and really not on a par with the much more sophisticated modern equipment that the Russian army is equipped with just on the other side of the border.
And so you see even back here in Kiev that there's a big effort by ordinary citizens to help their military. We've seen volunteers collecting things like sleeping bags, boots and camouflage vests just to send to the troops, because they are so underfunded and of course out-gunned if the Russians did decide to roll across, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, people pitching in on a potential war effort. Karl Penhaul reporting live from Kiev, thank you.
Now it has made shopping and reading more convenient, now Amazon says this device will give you a better way to watch TV. We'll tell you why next on News Stream.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LU STOUT: OK. Move over Siri, iPhone's digital assistant is getting a rival from Microsoft. It is called Cortana. And it will respond to voice commands on handsets running Windows Phone 8.1. It works a lot like Siri, but also includes some features found in the Google Now service on Android devices.
So why the name Cortana?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Cortana, do you like your name?
CORTANA: Cortana? I love it. It's certainly a lot catchier than Microsoft personal assistant V 1 service pack 2 2014.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: Now the name Cortana is actually a reference to this character from one of Microsoft's biggest game series Halo. In the games, Cortana is an artificial intelligence companion to the hero. And the actor who plays Cortana in Halo also gave her voice to the digital assistant.
Now while Microsoft is showing off Cortana, Amazon took the wraps off the Fire TV. It's a small box that will stream video off the web and play some Android games on your TV. Now the key feature is that it can search for video with your voice, just push a button, hold the remote near your mouth, say the name of a TV show or movie and Amazon says it should take you right to the video you want.
Now CNN's senior media correspondent Brian Stelter spoke to Amazon's vice president of devices David Limp about the fire TV.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN STELTER, HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: So, what problems is Amazon trying to solve with this device?
DAVID LIMP, VICE PRESIDNET OF DEVICES, AMAZON: Well, when we went out and talked to customers about media streaming boxes we saw really three things. The first was the amount of performance that are in these boxes. For some reason, they weren't following Moore's Law and they were slower than they needed to be. So we packed this full of incredibly fast quadcore processor, 2 gigabytes of RAM, great wifi.
The second problem we saw was it's hard to find the content you want to watch on these devices. So we added into the remote and into the system the ability to do voice search. And it's voice search that works incredibly well.
STELTER: That seemed like one of the most important developments to me. You hold it up to your mouth and name a show and it comes up.
LIMP: Exactly. And it's one of these things that's incredibly hard to implement. You have to have the recognition here, you have to pass it to the box, up to the cloud and come down, but as you saw we do that often in less than two or three seconds. And it's invisible to the customer, it's simple, but we love how it makes the box.
STELTER: At the presentation, it sounded like Amazon read user reviews on Amazon.com of other boxes and then tried to make this one better according.
The third thing I mentioned was the ecosystems that exist. Tell us about that.
LIMP: Yeah, typically, a lot of the time on these types of devices or smart TVs or game consoles, the ecosystem is closed. It's not meant to be open for developers. And we're releasing a developer kit here today so that everybody can come and develop on this. And it's based on open standards Android and HTML. And I'm super excited to see what developers can come up with on a platform like this as great things.
We already have some day one: we have ESPN, we have Netflix, we have Hulu Plus, Pandora. So there's a wide selection day one. But over time, I think it's just going to even get better.
STELTER: So it's a streaming device. There's also a casual gaming console. Was that the intent from the beginning to have a gaming device as well?
LIMP: Yeah, we thought about gaming from the very beginning, but as we were getting the device up, Fire TV up, we discovered that the performance was even better than we thought it would be with the processor and the RAM. And it lead us to be able to support games that are, you know, incredibly high performance, incredibly good graphics, but still at very affordable prices.
So we're today able to introduce games like Minecraft, which I weren't sure it would be there. And also develop our own games from our own games studio -- a game we announced today called Sev Zero.
STELTER: Is this meant to compete directly with Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft?
LIMP: You know, we really don't think of our device business like that. It's not a sporting event. There's not one winner here. There will be lots of winners. We continue to sell games consoles and other streaming media devices on Amazon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: It's worth noting that Amazon's Fire TV is built on the Android operating system, but like Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets, it's a custom version of Android that does not include access to apps on the Google Play Store or many other Google services.
Now U.S. political campaigns have long been powered by large donations from wealthy individuals and organizations. But there could soon be more dollars swishing around the system after the Supreme Court scapped campaign contribution limits.
Dana Bash has more on the ruling and the reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Demonstrators descended on the supreme court to protest a decision to do away with limits on federal campaign contributions (inaudible).
At the Capitol a split, mostly along party lines.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) OHIO: What I think this means is that freedom of speech is being upheld.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, (D) NEW YORK: They wish to dismantle all limits on giving piece by piece until we are back to the days of the robber barons.
BASH: The Supreme Court decision keeps in place limits on donations to individual candidates, currently $5,200 per election cycle. But the court lifted caps on the total amount someone can give, currently $48,600 to individual candidates and $74,600 to campaign committees. Those caps are now gone. And now Americans can donate an unlimited total amount per election cycle, that means more money available for more candidates.
Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said limits intrude without justification on a citizen's ability to exercise the most fundamental first amendment activities.
Political operatives in both parties tell CNN they don't think either party will benefit over the other, but that didn't stop Democrats from warning that their favorite villains, the Koch Brothers and other wealthy GOP donors, will have more influence.
Isn't this a kind of a wash that you talk about the Koch Brothers, they are already able to give a lot of money.
SCHUMER: The specific effect of this decision is not that large, because we're already awash in money, but where -- it shows where the Supreme Court is headed, which is to dismantle other, even more significant limits.
BASH: One likely effect, lawmakers who already spend so much time raising campaign cash may have to do it even more.
Dialing for dollars, is this going to make that worse?
REP. STEVE ISRAEL, (D) NEW YORK: Any time that you have a Supreme Court decision that enables people to raise more money, it means that too many of those people will be more focused on doing just that, raising more money. And that's just bad for democracy.
BASH: There may be a lot more money flowing into politics now, but the law says the donations at issue here still have to be publicly disclosed, which means the money will be able to be tracked. That's a big difference between this Supreme Court decision and the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which opened the flood gate for tens of millions of anonymous dollars into outside groups that are often used for TV attack ads.
Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Now General Motors CEO Mary Barra came up against U.S. senators in her second day of questioning on Capitol Hill. At issue, that faulty ignition switch that has been linked to the deaths of 13 people.
Now the defective part was redesigned back in 2006, but the part number was never changed. That has some GM critics alleging that it was a deliberate coverup.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARBARA BOXER, (D) CALIFORNIA: Ford decided it was cheaper for them to pay off the families of the dead than to fix the problem that would have cost them $11 a car. Did you make that kind of calculation over at GM in this situation?
MARY BARRA, CEO, GM: I did not.
BOXER: Do you know of anybody who did make it?
BARRA: That is the purpose of the investigation that...
BOXER: But you don't know now? You haven't asked and you don't know.
BARRA: I've asked for an investigation.
BOXER: Do you know if GM ever used this kind of cost-benefit analysis in its history?
BARRA: There were documents shared with me yesterday that if they're true as we go through the complete time line will demonstrate that it's completely unacceptable...
BOXER: Well, I didn't ask you that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am very troubled that you are not willing to commit to ending this culture of secrecy at General Motors.
BARRA: I didn't say that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, you have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The more I learn about what happened before the reorganization and in connection with the reorganization the more convinced I am that GM has a real exposure to criminal liability.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LU STOUT: We'll have more on Barra's testimony on World Business Today in the next hour right here on CNN.
Now it was a rare feat caught on video. It became an internet sensation. And now another snake's ambitious meal has been recorded again, this time by a CNN crew. We've got the details next.
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LU STOUT: The U.S. space agency is suspending much of its work with Russia. It says the decision stems from Russia's actions in Ukraine and last month's annexation of Crimea. But NASA will continue to work closely with Roscosmos (inaudible) International Space Station.
Now don't forget, the only way for U.S. astronauts to get there at the moment is by riding on a Russian Soyuz.
Now NASA used that fact to appeal for more money from congress saying, quote, "the choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians."
In a post on Google+ astronaut Ron Garen said NASA and the ISS should not be pawns in a political conflict. He writes this, quote, "the international space exploration programs rises above all our squabbles here on the ground. And we should not drag it down here."
Now it was a battle to the bitter end -- snake versus croc. Now this enormous water python swallowed a one meter crocodile in Australia. And the video of their run in, it went viral. And then soon afterwards, Neil Curry and our CNN cameras caught a similar sight in Rwanda.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NEIL CURRY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Dawn breaks over Akagera National Park in Rwanda and the early birds both feathered and otherwise are up and about their business.
Visitors to the Ruzizi Lodge had spent the previous night discussing a remarkable YouTube video showing a python eating a crocodile. By then the compelling scenes had drawn almost 25-million views. Staff at the lodge told us they had never seen a python in this part of the park. But that was about to change.
Less than 12 hours after that discussion croc versus snake, the sequel, was being played out underneath the breakfast terrace. Just beneath the water surface, a three meter python had ensnared a young crocodile in its coils. Over the course of the next two hours the snake held its prey, readjusting its crushing grip from time to time.
Occasionally the battle broke the water surface, revealing clearer glimpses of the crocodile. The duel was observed by another crocodile no more than twenty meters away. A dragonfly calmly watched the struggle from a much closer vantage point.
Finally satisfied that the young croc was subdued, the snake attempted to devour its prey. Opening its jaws to their widest extreme the snake tried several times to envelop the crocodiles head. On the third attempt it succeeded. After that it was a matter of twenty minutes until the tail disappeared inside the snake.
Apparently satisfied with its morning's work, the python slithered off into deeper water. Its body engorged by the shape of the crocodile, park rangers told us it would not need to eat for another four months. One less crocodile and one less snake for other users of the water to worry about.
Neil Curry, CNN, Akagera National Park, Rwanda.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LU STOUT: Got the heebee jeebies from that.
OK, now Toronto's city council put two measures up for vote this week and that seemed pretty hard to oppose. One is the name a street after the late Nelson Mandela and the other to honor Canada's Olympic athletes, but one member of the city council did vote against the measures. And yes, it was this guy, Toronto's mayor Rob Ford.
You'll remember that he gained international notoriety last year for being caught on video smoking crack among other odd behavior. Now Ford says he meant to vote in favor of the proposals, but he pressed the wrong button twice. The city council rejected his request for a revote, because not all members who voted the first time were still in the chamber. Now other members accuse him of having a long history of using his votes as retribution. In any case, both proposals had passed 40 to 1.
Thank you Rob Ford.
And that is News Stream. World Business Today is next.
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