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STUDENT NEWS

Update on 14-Year-Old Women`s Rights Activist`s Condition; EU Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Aired October 15, 2012 - 04:00:00   ET

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


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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And (ph) away ...

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CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: It was an incredible thing to see. We are going to tell you how it all turned out. I`m Carl Azuz. Welcome to a new week of CNN STUDENT NEWS.

Last week we reported on Malala Yousafzai. She`s a blogger and an activist for education and women`s rights. She`s 14 years old. Last Tuesday, Malala was targeted and shot by the Taliban. That`s a militant group that has a strong presence in the part of Pakistan where Malala lives. Lot of her country has rallied behind her. Thousands of people turning out to be part of a demonstration in the city of Karachi this weekend. They were showing their support for Malala and speaking out against the Taliban and its strict policies. Those include denying girls the chance to get an education, and that`s something that Malala spoke out against. Pakistani officials say doctors are keeping a close watch on Malala. As of yesterday afternoon, she was unconscious and using a breathing machine, but authorities said she is making slow and steady progress.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See if you can I.D. me. I am an organization that was established after World War II. I currently have 27 member countries. A continent is a part of my name, and my currency is the Euro.

I`m the European Union. And I`m responsible for my members` economic, social and security policies.

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AZUZ: The Nobel Committee says the European Union`s efforts to advance peace, democracy and human rights are why that organization, the European Union is this year`s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The award was announced last Friday. It`s not the first time that an organization has won the Peace Prize instead of an individual person. The committee says the E.U.`s win is a message to the whole world about finding ways to solve conflicts. For more, we turn to Jonathan Mann.

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JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look past all the protests in the streets of Spain and Greece. Look past all the high level talks and tangled finances. Look back to the centuries of war in Europe, a place where nowadays dozens of countries are so completely at peace that virtually no one notices. The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize for 2012 to the European Union. Because born out of the ashes of World War II as a way to unify the continent and keep it from fighting again, the Nobel Committee says the European Union has worked.

THORBJORN JAGLAND, CHAIR OF THE NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE: Over a 70 year period, Germany and France had fought three wars. Today, war between Germany and France had -- is unthinkable. This shows of true well aimed efforts and while building mutual confidence, historic enemies can become close parties.

MANN: The partnership now includes 27 nations, with more waiting to join. 500 million people grappling with their own national politics evolving European institutions, and its still experimental common currency mired in crisis. Everything from interest rates to austerity measures and unemployment eventually leads back to the E.U. In the streets of Spain, where the economy went from boom to bust, the E.U. is both credited and criticized, and its Nobel Prize got a mixed reaction.

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AZUZ: All right. We are wrapping up out Hispanic heritage month coverage today with a tasty segment for you. Here is some food for thought: did you know the names of some of the things we eat and drink have Spanish ties. Like the chocolate in my hot chocolate. It`s pronounced chocolate, the word comes from Nahuatl,, which is a group of languages from parts of Mexico and Central America. Another tasty word with Spanish routs is tomato, the name of this fruit, yes, this is technically a fruit, comes from Nahuatl, too. In Spanish, it`s tomate. We can`t give you fruit and dessert without a main course. Tuna, like the fish, comes from the Spanish word, atun.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it`s a pretty amazing event, that`s why I`m here with my daughter, to make sure that she sees it and is a part of it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Also, once in a lifetime thing to see a special, all going down the street, especially at the streets of L.A., so I had to see it.

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AZUZ: You heard it right, and it was a sight to see. A space shuttle rolling down the streets of Los Angeles, not part of a movie, it`s the final act for NASA`s shuttle program. That is Endeavour. It flew 123 million miles in space cruising along at supersonic speed. This weekend, it was crawling, just crawling along the roads of California. It`s not because of traffic. Endeavour had the streets to itself, as it`s slowly made its way to the California Science Center where it`s going on display. It turns out, this last journey had some holdups. Streets, no surprise aren`t designed for shuttles that are nearly 80 feet wide and more than 120 feet long. So some road signs had to be taken down, some trees, some of them very old, had to be cut down. But officials said aside from that, there were no reports of damage to or by the shuttle.

This was more like a space dive than a sky dive. Yesterday afternoon, Felix Baumgartner was trying to set the record for the highest jump, from 120,000 feet above the Earth. Not exactly, how it went down. He stepped out from his capsule at 128,000 feet. That is more than 24 miles up. Scientists say, he broke the speed of sound as he hurdled toward earth. You can imagine what that must have felt like. It took ten minutes for the 43-year old Austrian daredevil known as Fearless Felix to be back on solid ground. Max Foster spoke to him before his record shattering skydive.

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MAX FOSTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What no man has ever done before: jump from a capsule attached to a giant balloon from 120,000 feet where the view looks like this.

FELIX BAUMGARTNER, STRATOSPHERE SKYDRIVER: I`m going to slide the door open, bail out and then going to be the first human person in freefall, who`s breaking the speed of sound.

FOSTER: He makes it sound simple enough, but Felix Baumgartner`s attempt to jump from the edge of space comes after five years of exhaustive testing, development and even a legal hatch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s the biggest challenge here, why have - has no one tried it before and what`s the challenge that you`ve managed to overcome to make it possible?

BAUMGARTNER: It needs a lot of research, it`s not just you lock yourself in a pressure capsule and you go up, you need a lot of research. You need to find the right people to work with.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Explain a bit more about the suit, how it works, and what sort of technology is in there.

BAUMGARTNER: So the suit is protecting you. It provides you with oxygen, it keeps temperature, the cold temperature out. It also -- you also need the pressure suit, because if you reach 65,000 feet, which is called the Armstrong Line, your blood starts boiling. And that suit keeps you alive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

FOSTER: Baumgartner is no stranger to death-defying stunts. He has based- jumped from the world`s tallest buildings, set a record for the lowest such jump of Rio`s Christ the Redeemer statue and completed the first crossing of the English Channel with a specially made fiber wing. But freefalling from the edge of space is a whole new ball game.

BAUMGARTNER: The big problem that we faced here, is at 120,000 feet you have no supportive air. So the first 30 seconds, you cannot use the air, and that requires a really stable exit, that`s the reason why we practiced a lot of bungee jumps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had a chance to meet Neil Armstrong. I just wanted to ask you about it, in 2010, didn`t you? So, what advice did he give you?

BAUMGARTNER: Well, he said, go for it, you`ve got the right team behind you, you are prepared, you have the skills, so he definitely thinks it`s possible.

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AZUZ: Halloween still a couple of weeks away, but we are giving you a spooky showcase for your creative pumpkin projects right now.

We are talking about Halloween I-reports. You`ve got to be at least 13, send us your best by October, 26th, and your pumpkin, which doesn`t have to have my face on it, could pop up on cnn/studentnews. Boo-ya!

Before we go, maybe you don`t agree with one contestant in this cook-off, who said it`s what nature intended for people to eat. But if you are looking to make your taste buds really jump, you might go nuts for squirrel, and not just run off the fence grilled squirrel. We are talking about jalapeno squirrel poppers. Squirrel burgers and sliders, bacon wraps squirrel wings, not sure how they pulled off that last recipe, since squirrels don`t have wings, but there is no way we are going to squirrel out of having a little pun with this. Of course, it might sound a little nutty, some of you think all of our pans are acorny, but we always hop at the chance to put them to the nest, and frankly, I see nutting wrong with that. Thanks to our Facebook and Twitter followers for helping out with those, CNN STUDENT NEWS, we`ll tree you tomorrow.

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