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STUDENT NEWS

European Leaders Agree on Greece Bailout Plan; Preview of Election 2012

Aired November 2, 2011 - 04:00:00   ET

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


CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: On this day in 1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a federal holiday. Other significant events that happened on this day in history are coming right up. I`m Carl Azuz. You`re watching CNN Student News.

First up, the connections between a financial bailout, a vote in Greece and global swap markets: the bailout`s part of a deal that European leaders came up with last week. It`s designed to help Greece with its massive debt.

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AZUZ (voice-over): But the bailout comes with rules. Greece would have to raise taxes and cut government spending. And that`s something that Greek citizens have been protecting against for months.

Yesterday, Greek prime minister George Papandreou called for a national referendum. He wants Greek citizens to vote on whether they want the bailout and the rules that come with it.

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AZUZ: And this is where the global stock markets come in.

If Greece can`t turn its debt problem around, this could affect the entire world economy. So the news of this referendum made some investors worried. Many of them started selling off stocks, and that`s why a lot of international stock markets dropped yesterday.

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AZUZ (voice-over): Well, from Greece we are moving to Japan and a long-range plan for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. You`ve heard of this before.

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AZUZ: It suffered a meltdown after a deadly earthquake and tsunami back in March. The temperatures in the plan have come down inside the reactors. But according to a new report, it could take decades for the plant to become fully decommissioned.

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AZUZ (voice-over): That`s because this is a long and complicated process. First, officials have to do a cold shutdown. The plant`s owners say that should happen by the end of this year, but it`ll probably take 10 years to get all of the nuclear fuel out, and probably more than 30 years to completely finish the cleanup.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today`s Shoutout goes out to Mr. Shea`s social studies classes at Berkshire Junior and Senior High School in Canaan, New York.

In the U.S. political system, what is the function of primaries and caucuses? Is it to help determine Cabinet positions, Supreme Court justices, presidential nominees or electoral college members? You`ve got three seconds, go.

Primaries and caucuses help determine presidential nominees. That`s your answer, and that`s your Shoutout.

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AZUZ: That is what each of the people running for president wants to be. On the Democratic side, you have President Obama, expected to get his party`s nomination.

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AZUZ (voice-over): On the Republican side, there are more than a half dozen people out on the campaign trail. Right now, they`re working to stand out in that crowd, so they travel from state to state, they meet voters and they participate in debates. CNN is hosting two of those this month.

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AZUZ: When the calendar turns to 2012, that`s when those primaries and caucuses start happening. Voters will cast their ballots for individuals and you`ll see this field of candidates get smaller until one of them eventually becomes the official nominee at the national conversation in late August.

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AZUZ (voice-over): On this day in history, back in 1947, the Spruce Goose made its one and only flight. The flying boat was the largest aircraft ever built. It cost $23 million.

One year later, in 1948, Harry Truman was reelected to the U.S. presidency. His victory over Thomas Dewey is considered the biggest upset in presidential election history.

And in 2002, Russians and an American arrived at the international space station. They were the first crew of the ISS, and they spent more than four months on the station.

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AZUZ: A U.S. military commander says the keys to his forces being successful are teamwork and the ability to react quickly to different threats. But he`s not talking about troops in the field. His battle is online. Barbara Starr looks at some of the challenges the government has to deal with when warfare takes place on a virtual battlefield.

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BARBARA STARR, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Is cyberspace a war zone? The U.S. Secretary of Defense could not be more clear.

LEON PANETTA, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The next Pearl Harbor that we confront could very well be a cyber-attack.

STARR (voice-over): There`s already been one serious attack. In 2008, an infected flash drive was inserted into a laptop on a U.S. military base. A foreign spy agency had placed a malicious code on the drive. Secret data was transferred to foreign control. The Pentagon won`t name the suspect country.

On the very day the Pentagon unveiled its plan for operations in cyberspace, another breach revealed.

DEPUTY DEFENSE SECRETARY WILLIAM LYNN: A single intrusion this past March, 24,000 files were taken.

STARR (voice-over): Cyberspace is now full of attacks. Experts warn, however, just hacking into a network or taking down an electric power grid, doesn`t mean an automatic military response.

ROBERT NOONAN, SVP, BOOZ ALLEN: But if, in the course of knocking that electronic grid, if people were to die or you were to knock out hospitals, knock out the ability to provide for services for people, then certainly, I think, that would meet the definition of an act of war.

STARR (voice-over): The new Pentagon strategy focuses on defending military systems from theft and denial or disruption of service. But cyberspace has a particular attraction for attackers.

WILLIAM MARSHALL, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CHERTOFF GROUP: Yet, also, there`s a fairly low cost of entry in this business. They don`t have to have a massive military industrial complex to actually build an offensive capability and employ it.

STARR (voice-over): And if they attack, they can remain largely anonymous, making it difficult to find and target them, becoming the enemy right on the computer screen -- Barbara Starr, CNN, The Pentagon.

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AZUZ: All right. Think about your usual morning routine. What do you do from the time you wake up until when you get to school? Around the world, people your age are doing the same thing. This next report focuses on four girls on four different continents. It shows how doing the same basic thing -- getting ready for school -- can be very different, based on where and how you live.

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CAPUCINE MAMAC (ph): Hello, I`m Capucine Mamac. I`m 13. I live in London.

MICHELLE AGUSTINA (ph): My name is Michelle Agustina (ph). I`m in 10th grade. My age is 15 years old.

ABRIL LA TORRE: (Speaking foreign language).

DORCAS KANINI: I am Dorcas Kanini. I`m 14 years old. I am from Muteni Village in eastern Kenya. I woke up at around 4:30 am. I use this -- the lamp to study in the morning.

AGUSTINA (ph): First I used to live in Tamil Nadu. I shifted here in 2004 because of the tsunami. And now I`m settled in Delhi right now.

LA TORRE: (Speaking foreign language).

KANINI: This is the stream where we fetch water. We use this a lot. We are now fetching water for bathing. The water is also used for cooking, washing clothes.

LA TORRE: (Speaking foreign language).

KANINI: My parents passed away when I was one year old. I live with my grandparents. I normally don`t have breakfast because I am used to that. And now I`m leaving for school. From here I can see our school. It is there, where you can see some trees and a football pitch.

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AZUZ: In Denver, Colorado, getting ready for school is different for Lauren Robinson (ph), too, and it`s because the high school freshman doesn`t leave her house to get to class.

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AZUZ (voice-over): Instead, Lauren (ph) logs into her computer and uses the keyboard as a remote control to operate her robotic stand-in. Lauren has a severe dairy allergy, so she`s not allowed to go to school. This robot does it for her. Lauren says she`s sad she can`t be there in person, but she also feels like the robot keeps her from missing out on the experience of going to high school.

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AZUZ: Well, we`ve come to that last segment of our show today. You know, how that wedding vow goes, "till death do us part"?

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AZUZ (voice-over): This couple is doing things backwards, rising from the grave to start their ceremony. It`s not a zombie wedding, just a really morbid one. The bride and groom are huge fans of Halloween, and they decided to get married in a costumed event.

Since they arrived in a coffin and body bag, it made sense that they left in a vehicle normally used for funeral processions.

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AZUZ: Actually it was a set of matching cars, his and "hearse." Awesome. Something tells me anybody who stands in the way of that marriage could face "grave" consequences, but that couple is anything but a pair of deadbeats. That`s all for today. From CNN Student News, I`m Carl Azuz.

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