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A Three-Day Election Begins in Egypt; A Chinese Space Station is Expected to Fall Toward Earth; A UPS Shipping Facility Works to Keep Pace with E-Commerce
Aired March 27, 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: CNN 10 is taking you to Egypt for our first story this Tuesday. I`m Carl Azuz. Thank you for watching the show.
Polls are open in the North African country of 97 million people. A three- day long election began on Monday that will determine the next president of Egypt. But experts say that`s a foregone conclusion, that the country`s
current leader, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, is certain to win another term.
This is Egypt`s third election since long time leader Hosni Mubarak was forced out of power in 2011. And that time, like several countries in the
Middle East and North Africa, Egypt saw a wave of protests against its government that led to significant changes in leadership. But today, like
several of those same countries, Egypt continues to struggle with economic problems, limited opportunities for its people and terrorism.
President Sisi was first elected in 2014 and a win this week would bring his second and last four-year term. One reason why the vote is being
watched worldwide is because if turnout is high, it`s possible President Sisi will try to change Egypt`s constitution so he can serve longer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Let`s take a ride around the streets of Cairo. If you haven`t noticed, Egypt is having a presidential
election. A kaleidoscope of campaign posters wallpapers the city.
But you might have noticed something missing, the opposition.
It`s not my fault, Egypt`s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in an interview. I swear to god I wish there would have been more candidates for
people to choose what they want, but they were not ready yet. There`s no shame in this.
There were high profile contenders, but Egyptian authorities arrested former army General Sami Anan on a number of charges. Ahmed Shafiq, a
former 2012 presidential candidate, withdrew amid reports of intimidation. Human rights lawyer Khaled Ali withdrew after saying he was under pressure
from authorities.
Muhammad Anwar Sadat, the nephew of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, also says he felt pressure to withdraw.
After searching, we finally found the subtle posters of Mousa Mustapha Mousa, a last minute and little known challenger.
MOUSA MOSTAFA MOUSA, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: President Sisi was going alone in this game and if he falls, we all fall.
REPORTER: Mousa is accused of being a stooge of the government, a tool, to give the election the veneer of legitimacy. He denies this and insists his
platform makes him the better candidate.
No one doubts Sisi will win. The real challenge is voter apathy. His get out the vote campaign aims to drive Egyptians to the polls, and give him
the broad mandate he needs for another four years.
Ian Lee, CNN, Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: This week, a Chinese space station is set to fall from space.
It`s the size of a school bus and weighs more than nine tons.
Chinese officials say most of the space station will burn up upon re-entry.
But two-thirds of the Earth`s surface is in the potential impact zone.
However, the odds of getting hit by debris are miniscule.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you were lucky enough to win the Powerball a thousand times, that`s how unlucky you would haves to be to actually get
hit by a piece of this thing.
SUBTITLE: It will look like a bright show in the sky.
Since 2011, it served as an experimental lab. After its two year mission ended, China placed the space station into sleep mode.
China had planned to control its fiery descent, but it stopped sending data back to Earth.
That made a controlled re-entry impossible.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: From a falling space station to the rise of e-commerce, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that American spent more than $453 billion last
year buying stuff online. E-commerce sales have been growing for years now, so that`s not new. What is are the challenges this creates for
shipping companies. They have to continually upgrade and expand to keep up with the amount of items being shipped as opposed to bought in a store.
For a sense of how all that`s managed, we`re visiting a United Parcel Service facility in the Bluegrass State.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNNMONEY EDITOR AT LARGE (voice-over): Hair spray for Houston, dog food for Dallas, samples to Sydney, a contract for Kansas.
Sorting parcel seems so simple. The goods come in, they`re sorted, and then they leave.
But when your warehouse is bigger than 94 football fields, and your handling 2 million packages a day, there`s no room for a snooze, at the UPS
Worldport hub in Kentucky.
In charge of it all is Jason Foote.
JASON FOOTE, UPS WORLDPORT OPERATIONS MANAGER: This facility, while in a normal day, they only process 2 million packages. In their peak season,
we`ll handle more than double that.
QUEST (on camera): Well, only, that`s an enormous number.
FOOTE: It is. But so do every day.
QUEST (voice-over): Cameras and conveyors everywhere, 155 miles of moving belt. While automation is key, humans remain part and parcel of this
operation. Many of them working here, local students, and the pace is relentless.
(on camera): This is never ending. Hour after hour, these small packages flow into his tidal wave of sorting that now has to take place to ensure
these little packages end up in the right destination.
(voice-over): That`s where the humans come in. They needed to fill freight containers to the brim.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you want to do is you want to build up as high as you can.
QUEST: Kyle is the supervisor and showed me how. Think of playing Tetris.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you`re building a wall, you want to go as high as you possibly can, right, and then what you want to avoid is making columns.
But when you get all the way to your height, you want to then build out.
QUEST: Suddenly, a song came into my mind, little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made with ticky tape, little boxes on the hillside and they
all look just the same.
(on camera): Live crickets.
(voice-over): Crickets in the cargo, and Amazon logo`s grinning down on me everywhere.
(on camera): It`s not very complicated.
(voice-over): E-commerce is what`s filling these containers.
(on camera): It`s about half past 1:00 in the morning, and the tempo has increased. Roughly 380,000 packages an hour are now flowing into the
Worldport.
(voice-over): My parcels depart as quickly as they arrive, as those metal containers slide towards the planes.
(on camera): Amid all this high technology movement of commerce, there`s a delicious simplicity about the way these containers are dragged around by
hand.
(voice-over): The fact is as the network grows with demand, so does the risk of problems and challenges. It`s a fine balancing act for those in
control.
FOOTE: We have 120 aircraft coming in, so it`s bound to have its high (ph), but we do it every night. We make that balance every single night.
QUEST (on camera): And that`s when you`re called up, and they say, is that right?
FOOTE: No, we have about 10,000 people who are working at night, to do a great job. They don`t even need me.
QUEST (voice-over): Kentucky is UPS`s biggest facility and it`s not big enough. Future expansion means the place will handle half a million
packages an hour. As our love of e-commerce grows exponentially, so does this logistics powerhouse.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Charles has a head filled with motors. We`re not insulting someone. We`re reporting on a robot at the University of Cambridge. It`s named
Charles and its built-in servos help it mimic human expressions.
Cameras and computers factor in here. They record and analyze positions of real people`s facial features and then send them over to Charles who
appears to imitate their expressions.
So, what`s the value here? Researchers are trying to figure out if a more expressive robot is better at engaging the people who interact with it.
So, does that make Charles two-face or multi-faceted?
It`s time to face up and face back. Some folks may make it about face if they came face to face in a face-off or had to face time with the face they
didn`t trust. I guess it all comes down to whether you want Charles in charge of your facial expressions.
I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10.
END
