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Kenneth Bae`s Statement from North Korea; Edward Snowden`s Revealing the NSA Collecting Information on Americans; Martin Luther King`s Speech That Changed the Nation; Jamaica Bobsled Team Raising Money To Go to the Winter Olympics; An Army Mom Returning Home Surprises her Son at a Basketball Game
Aired January 21, 2014 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS. Your commercial-free source for news for the classroom. I`m Carl Azuz. And the first story we are covering today involves a man named Kenneth Bae. He is a U.S. citizen. In 2012, he was arrested in North Korea where he gave tours to people who wanted to visit. Bae was sentenced to 15 years in the North Korean labor camp. We don`t know exactly why. North Korea says he was trying to take down the country`s government. His mother thinks it might be because Bae is a devout Christian. And that he didn`t understand the rules of North Korea, an atheist country. On Monday, Bae gave a statement that said he committed a serious crime against North Korea.
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"I would like to plead with the U.S. government, press and my family to stop worsening my situation by making wild rumors against North Korea and releasing materials related to me, which are not based on the facts.
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AZUZ: We don`t know if Bae was speaking sincerely, though. North Korea has forced prisoners to make statements like that in the past.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if you can I.D. me. I`m a U.S. government agency that was established in 1952. My director is always a high-ranking military officer. I`m America`s most secret intelligence agency. I`m the National Security Agency, responsible for collecting foreign information and keeping U.S. information secure.
AZUZ: We`ve talked about Edward Snowden. He`s a former NSA worker who revealed secret information about the agency, that it collects Americans` phone records and email info, among other data. Some believe, this helps keep the country safer and monitor potential terrorist activity. Other see it as a significant invasion of Americans` privacy. Well, President Obama recently announced that he`d made major changes in the way the NSA gathers information. But he`s not stopping the agency from gathering it.
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CROWD: No secret (inaudible)!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After months of spirited debate sparked by the explosive revelations of Edward Snowden, the president told Americans he`ll rein in NSA surveillance, but only to a point.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The power of new technologies means that there are fewer and fewer technical constraints on what we can do. That places a special obligation on us to ask tough questions about what we should do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most significant changes affect the most controversial surveillance program - the bulk collection of Americans` phone records, effective immediately, the NSA will need judicial approval before searching the data. The president asked Congress to create a panel of public advocates to counter government search requests. And he asked the Attorney General and intelligence committee to explore moving the data out of NSA control. But the bottom line, the program won`t necessarily end.
CROWD: They say (INAUDIBLE)
CROWD: We say (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the NSA`s most ardent critics that would be a glaring omission.
SEN. RAND PAUL: I didn`t hear any lessening of the spying on Americans or collecting records of Americans. I heard that trust me, I`m going to put some more safeguards in place, but I`m going to keep right on collecting every American`s records.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president argues that much of the surveillance is just too important to scrap altogether.
OBAMA: Not only because I felt that they made us more secure, but also because nothing in that initial review and nothing that I`ve learned since indicated that our intelligence community has sought to violate the law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, do any of the changes make us less safe?
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: If these programs were stopping huge terrorist attacks, you know, maybe they would - should be more, you know, there should be more concern. But the fact is that these programs are not.
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AZUZ: Yesterday honored American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It became a federal holiday in 1983, and 11 years later, it became a national day of service, a one of a kind event. Dr. King once said, everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.
President Obama participated in the service project in Washington, D.C. You see him here volunteering at D.C. central kitchen, in organization that aims to reduce hunger and poverty. Also, in the U.S. capital, the traditional wreath laying at the King Memorial. The National Park Service says millions visited the first full year it was open in 2012, and millions visited last year on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King`s march on Washington. Brian Todd looks back at that event.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Many of them were so young that summer, Martin Luther King Jr. himself only 34, but they led hundreds of thousands on the march to the nation`s capital that would pivot the country toward irreversible change. "Time" magazine captures that moment in a tribute to King. Time editor Radhika Jones says the use of the key players then was a crucial component in publishing this tribute now.
RADHIKA JONES, EXEC. EDITOR, TIME MAGAZINE: They are still with us. They can tell their own stories, and it was so important to us to talk to them directly and here, there are memories of that day.
TODD: The memories come from people like Clarence Jones, King`s speechwriter.
In a testimonial on "Time`s" website, he describes the moment King grabbed his audience.
CLARENCE B. JONES, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.`S SPEECHWRITER: I`m listening to his speech, and as I`m listening, I see that he`s really - Mahalia Jackson interrupted him while he`s speaking. Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream! Body language changed. And he changed what I call the Baptist preacher`s test task (ph). And I say to the person standing next to me, whoever that was, I said these people don`t know it, but they are about ready to go to church.
TODD: When King`s body language changed, so did the speech and with it, a movement.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live up the true meaning of its dream. We hold this truth to be self- evident that all men are created equal.
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AZUZ: Time for the CNN STUDENT NEWS "Roll Call" and this one, for the birds. We mean the Eagles of Edgartown School. They are parched in Edgartown, Massachusetts. We mean the Silver Hawks of Lincoln Southwest High School. They are taking flight from Lincoln, Nebraska. And we mean the Red Hawks of Liberty High School. They are soaring over Frisco, Texas.
Germany, Russia, Canada, Switzerland, all countries associated with winter sports, all countries that have done well in the Olympics bobsled competition. How about Jamaica? The Caribbean country just got a word Saturday that it has qualified for next month Winter Olympics in Russia. But that was just one of the challenges the storied team faced.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get up! It`s bobsled time!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time in more than a decade, the biggest underdogs in bobsledding had to fight the odds and qualify for the Olympic Games. But the Jamaican bobsled team isn`t packing their bags just yet. The problem? They need a lot of money, fast.
WINSTON WATTS, TEAM CAPTAIN/PILOT: That`s why we are looking (INAUDIBLE) we can fulfill the dream.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The team needs to raise as much $80,000 to cover travel and equipment fees, so they`ve turned the fundraising websites like Crowdtilt to try and make it happen. In just under 24 hours, the team raised more than $16,000 and donations continue to poor in.
MARVIN DIXON, BRAKEMAN: We`re Jamaican. We believe, you know, it`s going to (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not bobsledding yet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, we are!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Jamaican`s are among the most famous teams in the sport due in large part to the popularity of the Disney classic "Cool Runnings" that chronicle the Olympic journey of the country`s first bobsled team.
After missing the last two Winter Olympics, the Jamaican bobsledders were determined to qualify for Sochi.
DIXON: This is such a really, really great feeling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The team who refers to themselves as "Cool Runnings" the sequel, knows that the odds are stocked against them.
DIXON: A lot of people ask us if we are really crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they are hoping that with some help, they`ll have another shot at Olympic glory.
DIXON: It`s not many people can say they are from a tropical country, be not there and do a sport, which is winter sports, and we are so good at it.
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AZUZ: Derek Jakons (ph) hadn`t seen his mother in eight months. She`s in a U.S. Air Force, and she`s been deployed in the Middle East. She got home last week, but she didn`t immediately tell Derek. She decided to surprise him at a basketball game while he was playing.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the plan is to call a fake (inaudible) tech on the coach, and then we`re going to have Derek go out to the line, for two or three throws and then that`s when we have his mom come from behind and that - will get surprised.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m nervous, because I don`t know what his reaction is going to be.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m thinking he`ll say Mommy and give me a hug. You know, we are at a basketball game, his friends are here, girls are here. Maybe he`ll cry, but then he`ll be mad at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s all right, Derek!
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He cried a little bit. But that`s OK. That was his natural reaction. That was Derek. And that`s really the reaction I thought he would have.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom, I missed you.
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AZUZ: She`d missed all of football season and the holidays, so she thought the basketball game was worth a shot. There was nothing foul about it in the true sense of the word, it was a homecoming game. I`m Carl Azuz, for CNN STUDENT NEWS.
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