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NEWS STREAM

Rudy Giuliani Interview; Korean Diplomacy; Trade War Fears; Violent Storms in India; CNN Freedom Project; Data Scandal Fallout, World Headlines; World Press Freedom Day; Pentagon Bans Huawei And ZTE Phones; Xiaomi Files For Hong Kong IPO; Unveiling Blockchain. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired May 3, 2018 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN NEWS STREAM SHOW HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong and welcome to "News Stream."

A strong denial in tweet form. Donald Trump takes (INAUDIBLE) to address a hush payment for a porn star.

Devastating storm. A deadly mix of dust, wind and lightning strikes Northern India.

And another North Korean olive branch where (ph) Pyongyang may be planning for three detained U.S. citizens.

And we begin in Washington where President Donald Trump is responding to a bombshell revelation from one of the newest members of his legal team. Mr.

Trump took to Twitter in the last hour confirming that he did in fact repay his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment to porn star

Stormy Daniels.

He insists that no campaign funds were used, rather it was a private deal. The president tweets, they come after one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani,

first made that stunning admission to Fox News on Wednesday night.

A lot to get to so let's go straight to CNN's MJ Lee in New York. MJ, first, Donald Trump up and tweeting about the Stormy Daniels payment and is

he changing the story?

MJ LEE, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, what you're actually seeing if you look closely at the three tweets that he sent out a couple of

minutes ago is that he's trying to actually show that he is not changing his story. I think there are two things in particular worth pointing out

from these tweets.

One, as you noted, he insists Donald Trump that these were not related in any way to the Trump campaign. He says that these payments were made in the

form of retainer and that they really were not related in any way with the campaign, which if you will notice is something that Michael Cohen had gone

to lengths to say as well.

But he has privately -- previously rather said that the Trump Organization and the Trump campaign were not involved in any way in reimbursing him but

note that is not the same thing as saying Donald Trump never personally repaid me.

The second thing I want to point out there, where Donald Trump says the agreement was used to stop the false and extortionate accusations made by

her, her being Stormy Daniels, about an affair. Now, this is something that Donald Trump and especially through the White House has been consistent

about. They have insisted ever since the Stormy Daniels story came out that there was no such affair.

Stormy Daniels, remember, says that she had a brief sexual encounter with Donald Trump one day in 2006, and what the White House has said all along

is that no, there was no affair. And when folks (ph) have been asked to sort of explain, well there was no affair, then why this payment.

What Michael Cohen has said is that, you know, even if there is a payment, there could still be sort of damaging information in Stormy Daniels trying

to tell the story and that is why we made that payment.

Now, before we get any further, I think we should take a look what actually sparked all of these tweets from Donald Trump this morning. Let's take a

look at what Rudy Giuliani said last night, making the very unexpected news about this payment to Stormy Daniels.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEE (voice over): Rudy Giuliani admitting President Trump repaid Michael Cohen for the hush money given to porn star Stormy Daniels just days before

the 2016 election.

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: I'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. It is not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.

So, they funneled it through a law firm. Funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it.

LEE (voice over): Giuliani's remarks directly contradicting President Trump's own words last month.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Mr. President, did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?

TRUMP: I don't know.

LEE (voice over): In March, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also said the president was unaware of the payment.

SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I had conversations with the president about this. There was no knowledge of any payments from

the president and he's denied all of these allegations.

LEE (voice over): Despite this, Giuliani telling The Washington Post that Mr. Trump was well aware he was eventually going to disclose that the

president did in fact pay Daniels. Giuliani suggesting the president did not know the specifics of the payment until recently, but that Cohen's

monthly retainer was intended to take care of these kinds of situations.

GIULIANI: When I heard Cohen's retainer of $35,000, when he was doing no work for the president, I said that's how he is repaying, with a little

profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.

[08:05:05] LEE (voice over): Back in February, Cohen released this carefully-worded statement, claiming that, neither the Trump Organization

nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment. Notably missing, President

Trump's name. Giuliani also showcasing Mr. Trump's aggressive new posture towards the special counsel.

GIULIANI: You can't possibly -- you can't possibly not feel as a citizen of the world that his negotiations with North Korea are much more

significant than this totally garbage investigation.

LEE (voice over): Revealing that the odds are the president will not sit down with Mueller and that Mueller's team has rejected submitting written

answers to their questions.

GIULIANI: Jay and I will insist that they're going to have to treat him the same way as Clinton. Two and a half hours, we end, we walk out, give us

your questions in advance.

LEE (voice over): The White House announcing that another lawyer is leaving. Ty Cobb departing just weeks after John Down. Emmet Flood who

represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment proceedings is joining the team.

A source tells CNN that Cobb has been clashing with the president in recent weeks over his public attacks on the Mueller probe, which he advised

against. Giuliani also slamming former FBI Director James Comey and giving this new rationale for why the president fired him.

GIULIANI: He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn't a target of the investigation. He is entitled to that.

LEE (voice over): President Trump gave this explanation for Comey's firing.

TRUMP: Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know,

this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: As you saw there, Giuliani making so much news in just one interview. The back of the Stormy Daniels issue. What is not clear right now is why

Giuliani chose last night to make news on this, the timing on this is still very not clear.

LU STOUT: Yes, such a stunning revelation. Timing unclear. MJ Lee across it all, thank you so much and take care.

Turning now to North Korea. We are waiting to see if three detained Americans will be released. An official with knowledge of negotiations says

the release of Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak-song is imminent. The timing could be significant with the historic meeting between North Korean

Leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump expected in the next few weeks.

President Trump has tweeted about the news but he doesn't seem to quite have his facts straight. For more on this and more, let's bring up

Alexandra Field. She joins us live from Seoul. Alex, what more have you learned about the so called imminent release of these three Americans?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly President Trump has alluded that there is a development coming as he teases

to stay tuned obviously the family members of these three men who had been detained. They are certainly tuned in, waiting for any kind of development

that might mean that their loved ones could finally return home.

But let's quickly backup and fact check that tweet. He talks about the last administration working to free these hostages. In fact, only one of them

was detained in 2015, when President Obama was in the Oval Office. The other two who are currently detained were both teaching at the Pyongyang

University Science and Technology. They were detained in 2017, obviously, when President Trump was in office.

But, we do have a president who is in the White House now saying that it is a top priority of his to push for the release of these three men and

certainly the climate for that does seem like it could be conducive to release of these hostages.

We are talking about the possibility of this historic summit of course between President Trump and Kim Jong-un that could be just three or four

weeks away really happening and anyone who is watching North Korea is saying that certainly this is an opportune moment for North Korea to

release these men as partly good faith gesture.

It isn't just the president who is teasing that there are developments in the worst. One source has told CNN that the release of the detainees is in

fact imminent, that the groundwork for this was late some two months ago when the North Korean foreign minister traveled to Sweden, proposed the

idea, and was told at the time that U.S. officials wouldn't sister (ph) any release of detainees.

It was completely separate, not tied in any way to the main issue of denuclearization, which is of course the primary topic of that summit

between the North Korean leader and the U.S. president. Kristie?

LU STOUT: Alexandra Field live in Seoul, thank you.

We have been learning more about the three hostages and North Korea's highly serious accusations against them. Kim Dong Chul is currently serving

a decade-long sentence of hard labor. North Korean officials tells CNN that he had confessed to espionage claims. Kim had been accused of trying to

gather military secrets.

Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony, was taken at Pyongyang Airport just last year. The university teacher was accused of trying to overthrow the

government.

[08:09:58] North Korea Central News Agency says Kim Hak-song was held on suspicion of, quote, hostile acts. Pyongyang (ph) describes him as someone

who is doing business in relation to the operation of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

Donald Trump is hailing his relationship with Beijing as his team of trade officials get down to business in China on the future of that relationship.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is in fact in Beijing, heading the U.S. side of the discussions. One of the big priorities is to ease fears of a

trade war.

But the U.S. and China have threatened to impose tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of each other's goods. For more of these talks, let's

go straight to Matt Rivers. He joins us now live from Beijing. And Matt, Trump's team, they are there in Beijing. They have been armed with tough

talk on trade. But do they know exactly what they want from China and are they all on the same page?

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At least probably clearly haven't gotten any specific goals from the trade delegation in terms of

this is what we want the Chinese to do to fix this problem. There's really a lot of general statements so far.

You saw the president tweeted about it about eight hours ago basically saying that he wants to come here to China to try and level the playing

field between both countries. And you have Secretary Steven Mnuchin before he came to China speak to CNN very briefly and here is what he had said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVEN MNUCHIN, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF TREASURY: We are going in to have frank discussion. It is not a question of whether it is your heart

(ph). We are going there to have frank discussion to look for meaningful progress on trade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERS: And so what does meaningful progress look like? Well, we know what the administration has a problem with in terms of this trade relationship.

We know they don't like intellectual property theft. We know they have a problem with counterfeiting that goes on here. We know they have a problem

with forced technology transfers.

And perhaps more important to any of them to the president would be the trade deficit which is higher than it has ever been, well over $350 billion

at this point. But how do they solve that? How do they want China to solve those problems? Do they want China to increase market access for foreign

companies operating here?

That is something Xi Jinping, the president of China, has touched on, Kristie, but not given real specif frameworks for. Or do they want China to

commit in a substantive way to buy more American imports? That would of course lower the deficit between the United States and China.

Those are the questions that we don't have answers for. We know they spent the afternoon -- conversations with their Chinese colleagues here in

Beijing. There supposed to be a dinner held. And so at this point, we don't know if that dinner is even over or what happened during this afternoon

meetings but those are the questions that remained unanswered.

LU STOUT: Yes, deal on progress. We don't know how that is going to achieve, if they are going to use tariffs or sticks. The U.S. has talked

about their big stick. They have threatened to start tariffs of up to $100 billion on Chinese goods if they don't get a deal. If such tariffs go into

effect, how could China retaliate?

RIVERS: There's a lot of analysts that would argue that China has more M.O. to retaliate in the trade war than the United States does. It

certainly has a different political system, that at least could allow China to be more willing to put up with negative trade effects for a longer

period of time than the United States would.

So China could do a number of different things. They have already threatened $50 billion in tariffs on American imports. Those kind of

tariffs would hurt the American heartland and industries like agriculture. Think about big companies that operate here, Apple, Cisco, Boeing. The kind

of companies that really rely on the Chinese middle class here, the growing middle class to help make sure their profit margins remain high.

So China has a number of different avenues in which it could retaliate. But the key point there is that the political system here is dominated at the

top. They don't have election. They don't have midterms. They don't have presidential election or you need votes from electoral college. So China

could perhaps be more willing to outlast the United States and ignore the negative side effects of a potential trade war.

LU STOUT: Yeah, got it, played a long game. Matt Rivers reporting live from Beijing, thank you so much.

You're watching "News Stream." Still ahead right here on the program, fears when lightning strikes Northern India. But the deadliest (ph) may be poor

infrastructure.

And Cambridge Analytica, the company at the center of the Facebook scandal, says it is shutting down, but some of its execs have another project.

[08:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: Let's take a look at this video. Look at the power of the wind in Northern India. Devastating and deadly storms have killed more than 100

people and injured hundreds more, that's according to state authorities.

The Indian prime minister has expressed condolences for the victims and their families. Chad Myers joins me now live from CNN Weather Center. Chad,

describe the condition and what made this dust storm still deadly there?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST AND SCIENCE REPORTER: It was a complex of storms. In weather school, you call it mesoscale convective complex or

mesoscale convective system. It is a batch of thunderstorms all feeding off of each other and rolling to the southeast, right over Agra. Here is that

cell (ph) right there moving to the south and to the southeast.

I am going to stop it for you and will show minute by minute how it happened. It began to develop just to the northwest of New Delhi. And then

it expand in size and blew up over Agra. And all of a sudden, when you get one thunderstorm blowing out air, it blows up another thunderstorm here and

you got them feeding on each other.

Let me show you some night time video of the wind blowing sideways here. Now, this do happen quite often in North America. But we have structures

that can withstand it. Much of this was power poles (ph), 8,000 power poles (ph), something like that, homes that just cannot withstand this type of

wind. That was the issue here. So yes, there was dust in here, but the dust was the outfall from the thunderstorm complex itself.

So let me get to an explainer (ph) here and I will show you how this happened. A thunderstorm those high up in the sky, thousands of meters,

tens of thousands of meters sometimes, well, the storm itself was high and decided to collapse and make more thunderstorm. As the air pushes out, it

pushes out dry air where it hasn't rained yet. And that's why we have the dust first and then we have the thunderstorm and the lightning.

Last week, over a dozen people died because of lightning strikes alone. We got a very, very slow start to Monsoon season over the past couple of

years. This may have something to do with the ground that is very dry. Kristie?

LU STOUT: Chad, thank you for that explainer (ph), walking us through on what made this wind so fierce and ultimately so deadly. Chad, thank you.

It is feared that the death toll already so high, it will continue to rise. Many of the victims so far were killed when their homes collapsed. Nikhil

Kumar is following the story from New Delhi. He joins us now live. Nikhil, to what degree was this a man-made disaster due to poor construction and

unsafe buildings?

NIKHIL KUMAR, CNN NEW DELHI BUREAU CHIEF: Kristie, most of the fatalities are concentrated in rural areas. That is where (ph) the officials and the

states particularly the state of (INAUDIBLE) and Rajasthan, North India (ph) where most of the damage occurred.

And it is absolutely if go out into rural in there, the kind of structure that you will encounter. They are much weaker than what you will encounter

in Northern (ph) India. They are certainly not strong enough to withstand an unusual storm like this. Storms in these states ahead of the Monsoon are

quite common.

[08:20:00] But these buildings that do exist there, they are not prepared for an unusual storm and uncommon storm like this one. And so we have

reports of buildings collapsing, of walls collapsing, of trees falling down on structures in the villages in rural areas, and people dying and being

injured as a result of that.

And so this was entirely uncommon. And people in the communities and the structures in those communities were entirely unprepared for this, Kristie.

That's why we have this escalating death toll which many fear could rise even further as authorities go deeper into the countryside and investigate

the damage. Kristie?

LU STOUT: Nikhil Kumar reporting live from New Delhi, thank you.

There has been swift (ph) reaction to CNN's investigation into child labor in cobalt mines of Congo. Some manufacturers that use the mineral say that

they are making big changes. Car maker Daimler has announced a major audit of its supply chains after CNN found that much of the cobalt used by

electric car industry is being mined by children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): We arrived at the Musonoie River Mine where the cobalt ore is washed to grind it down.

Although we've been given permission to film here, as soon as they see us, officials begin to scare the children away. Not all of them though are fast

enough. Some work on. One young boy staggers under his load, his friend sees the camera and he drops his sack. They clearly been warned.

A mining ministry official spot this boy carrying cobalt has been captured by our cameras. His response is brutal. Later, we asked him why he struck

the child, he refused to answer.

ELBAGIR (on camera): We now witnessed for ourselves that children are working here, that they are involved with the production of cobalt and

we've seen the products of that child labor loaded on to a variety of different vehicles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LU STOUT: That's Nima Elbagir reporting there. Daimler says it has explicitly forbidden child labor for years, but admits that it is difficult

to verify the source of its cobalt. It says it will work with 1,500 suppliers worldwide to stop any violations.

Nima Elbagir was part of the CNN team that investigated the story. She joins me again from London. Nima, incredible response here. A day after

your report was released, Daimler has announced it will take action. Do you think it will enough?

ELBAGIR: That is the question. The reality is that this is an incredibly complicated process and that's one of the reasons why it has been so

difficult. But they are commencing to 1,500 suppliers. The way that automobile supply chains work is that they are incredibly complex. And you

go through different tiers (ph) of supplies.

So generally the car maker will be dealing with perhaps just to tier one, the very top tier supplier. He will then go to other tiers. The issue with

that is of course, if you could have done it, why didn't you do it sooner? If you could have orders (ph) of these 1,500, why didn't you this sooner?

Daimler say that this is something that they have been looking into since 2013. Again, clearly an acknowledgment of their awareness of the problem.

And Daimler actually, Kristie, among the companies that has been more forthcoming. When we spoke to them and showed them our findings initially,

they immediately admitted that there were issues with their chain.

With other companies, we actually had to dig through financial findings. The Tesla, for example, we had to go through their security commission

planning (ph) to see that they themselves acknowledge that there was the possibility of child labor in their supplier chain.

What Daimler has done is an extraordinary first step because what it does is set a template for other companies.

LU STOUT: To file this report, you and your team had to go through so many rims of data. You are also in the field subjected to intimidation. You also

witnessed children being physically pushed and harassed because presumably they made their presence known in front of the cameras and that wasn't

allowed.

The mines are clearly trying to hide this stark secret and they are trying so hard to do it from reporters like you. Could they also hide it from the

car makers and their auditors as well?

ELBAGIR: Yes is the simple answer. Yes, and that was one of the main focuses of this piece, was to show that we are dealing with this level of

complicity at the official level. Car makers have been outsourcing that. There are more responsibilities to officials who are complicit and hiding

child labor.

Daimler has said that they are going to deal with it. They are going to directly audit at the mine. So they are going to send experts to the mine.

And hopefully, those experts will go with an awareness that that is going to be a difficult task. And then it can't be about second or third party

inspectors coming in sporadically.

LU STOUT: Nima Elbagir reporting live from CNN London for us, thank you once again and take care.

[08:25:02] British authorities, they are vowing to continue investigating Cambridge Analytica, even though the company says it is shutting down. The

analytics firm has been under intense pressure after allegations that it misused personal Facebook data of tens of millions of people without their

knowledge.

But, it may not be entirely over for some of the executives of the company. They have set up a new data firm, something that The New York Times reports

could be used as a front to rebrand Cambridge Analytica. CNN's Phil Black has been following the story. He joins us now live from London. Cambridge

Analytica may have said, OK, we're shutting our operations, but will its top execs stay in the data mining business through this other entity?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, company records here in the U.K. do show that investors and executives closely involved in the establishment

and running of Cambridge Analytica have recently been moving to set up a new company called Emerdata.

Its purpose, according to this official listing, have the nature of business as officially described as data processing, posting and other

related activities. Cambridge Analytica itself announced this decision to wind up in a statement that was full of its usual defiance and denials, but

also at times sounded a little angry and bitter.

It blamed what it described as unfairly negative reporting. It said it had been vilified as a company for practices that are legal and widely accepted

when it comes to online advertising both for politics and for business.

Let's take a look at the direct quote now from the Cambridge Analytica statement. In it, it said this, despite Cambridge Analytica's unwavering

confidence that its employees have acted ethically and lawfully, the siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the company's customers

and suppliers.

So essentially Cambridge Analytica has decided that its brand has been damaged beyond repair. Kristie?

LU STOUT: All right, Phil Black, reporting live from London, than you.

You're watching "News Stream." Up next, risking it all to get the truth. The dangers facing journalists on World Press Freedom Day with special

insight into Myanmar, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. You're watching "News Stream" and these are your world headlines.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted confirmation that he did repay his attorney for $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump

previously denied any involvement with the payment.

[08:29:57] The president says he did not use any business or campaign funds, rather it was a private deal. He also denied that he ever had an

affair with Daniels.

Iran's leader say that they will pull out of the nuclear deal if the United States does. That's according to state media. President Donald Trump is to

decide whether to stick with the 2015 deal by May the 12th. Iran's foreign minister has taken to Twitter, saying that there is only one way forward

and that is U.S. compliance, not appeasement.

Three Americans detained in North Korea could be released at any time, according to an official with knowledge of the negotiations. We were told

that North Korea's foreign minister proposed releasing them two months ago. But at the time, U.S. officials insisted their release should not be

related to the issue of denuclearization.

Persecution, imprisonments, even murder. There are just some of the threats journalists face around the world. And this day is World Press Freedom Day.

It is the time to celebrate free press and remember journalists who put their lives on the line just for doing their jobs.

This year is particularly poignant. Just a few days ago, 10 journalists were killed in Afghanistan. In fact, at least 23 journalists have been

killed this year. And that's globally, according to Reporters Without Borders. And more than 176 journalists are in jail worldwide, including a

large number in Turkey, Egypt, and China.

Many others are on trial, including in Myanmar, where two Reuters supporters are accused of breaching the country's Official Secrets Act.

They could face 14 years in jail. In a surprise ruling, the judge in the case said that he will allow the testimony of a policeman who says that

they were framed.

For more, let's go straight to Reginald Chua. He is the chief operating officer of editorial for Thomson Reuters. He joins me live from New York.

Reginald, good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us here on the program.

Let's talk about that ruling. The judge made this key ruling in favor of your reporters. It is accepting the testimony of a policeman who said, yes,

these reporters were framed. So, are you -- is everyone at Reuters feeling a little bit more hopeful about the outcome of this case now?

REGINALD CHUA, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, EDITORIAL THOMSON REUTERS: Yes, of course. Look, I mean, we want to temper expectations of course, but it is

really good news for us. You know, we have Police Captain Moe Yan who very courageously come forward and said, this was a set up. He had been ordered

to do so by brigadier general to give them these papers and then arrest them.

And so, you know, the prosecution had moved to declare him unreliable witness. The judge says, no, he is a reliable witness. We should come back

and question him some more. So, you know, finally, I think, the true story of what has happened is coming out and that has to give us some hope that

this trial, which frankly should never have taken place to begin with, will come to the right conclusion that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were simply doing

their jobs and doing nothing wrong.

LU STOUT: Yes, they have been imprisoned for over 140 days now. And the impact of their arrest, it has made an impact not just at Reuters and

unformed correspondence but also inside Myanmar as well. Have you seen that it had a chilling effect on views on media inside Myanmar?

CHUA: Well, I think there are two ways to look at it, right? I mean, one is that we are really gratified at the outpouring of support locally. I

mean, we've had journalists marching, wearing black t-shirts and coming together.

So I think it kind of brought a sense of solidarity in some ways. Wa Lone, as you can see on screen, has come out and essentially given a press

conference every time there has been a hearing, and he said some incredibly stories on (ph) things.

So I think that that has really helped journalists in Myanmar remind themselves of the purpose of what they do. At the same time of course, as

you know, in Myanmar, there has been a number of journalist who have been arrested and jailed over the last year.

And while obviously things are better now than they were, say, 10 years ago under military rule, the space for reporting is tightening out and you know

that it's hard to go in, for example, report in Rakhine State on the Rohingya.

So, issues like that, I think, clearly -- you know, there are two sides to this, but yes, I agree people are worried. At the same time, I think they

are also sending a message of solidarity and the importance of press freedom.

LU STOUT: Yes, this is a landmark press freedom case. It is also about the lives of these two men, the purpose of these two men who are suffering

right now. Can you tell us more about Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who they are, and what are they like as individuals?

CHUA: Look, they are both great people. Wa Lone, his wife is pregnant now. He didn't know when he went into jail. He now does know. He is, you know,

he is a really good guy. He set up charities on his own. He has helped children. He has written children's books.

Kyaw Soe Oo has a 2-year-old daughter. She is the cutest thing you've ever seen. He gets to hug her a little bit at every hearing. He is a poet,

actually, but decided that he really needed to tell the story of what is happening in his home state, Rakhine State.

[08:34:58] One of the things that we do do at each of the hearings as they last long enough and they have a lunch break. They get lunch with their

families and that's been a really nice small -- I guess blessing that they get at each of these hearings, that they can actually spend a bit of time

with their families.

LU STOUT: Reginald, thank you so much for joining us, giving us this intimate portrait of these two Reuters reporters, and joining us on this

World Press Freedom Day. Thank you so much.

CHUA: Thank you.

LU STOUT: Richard Chua, CEO of Reuters Editorial. Take care. You're watching "News Stream." And still ahead right here in the program, what do

cryptocurrency, health care, and election all have in common? They could all be using blockchain technology. We are going to head to Dubai after the

break for more on this potential disruptor.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LU STOUT: The Pentagon has a message for stores in U.S. military bases, stop selling phones made by Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE. Pentagon

spokesperson said on Wednesday this, quote, Huawei and ZTE devices may pose an acceptable risk to the department's personnel, information and mission.

Huawei has responded to this, saying that their products meet the highest standards of security and privacy. Last year, only 2,400 Huawei and ZTE

phones were sold on military bases. Still, the Pentagon's action could further escalate U.S.-China trade tensions.

Chinese tech giant smart phone maker Xiaomi has announced it is going public here in Hong Kong and this IPO is going to be massive. A reports

suggests it is expected to be around $10 billion. Xiaomi might just be a trendsetter as other Chinese tech giants look to go public later this year.

You've probably heard the word blockchain. People talk about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. But the technology has many, many other applications.

Samuel Burke joins me now live from Dubai, which is hosting a global blockchain summit. What do you got, Samuel?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Kristie, a lot of people still question what is blockchain. I think one of the best

explanation I've heard at this conference is it's an electronic ledger. So think of it as a place where everybody could see the transactions that have

gone back and forth between things, for example, kind of a Google doc that can be shared around the world for different uses. Dubai government has

made very clear that they want to be a blockchain hub so they are hosting conferences like this one and having guests here.

Speakers like Larry Sanger, you are a co-founder of Wikipedia, now the chief information officer at rival Everipedia. And one of the reasons I've

heard that this could be a good rival to Wikipedia is that having the information on blockchain. That is what you want to do, put blockchain in

with Everipedia so that the information can be accessible to everybody because we see countries where parts of all of Wikipedia has been blocked.

How could blockchain help this issue?

LARRY SANGER, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, EVERIPEDIA: Basically, a blockchain is a collection of notes. I think of it as a database where

copies are spread, duplicated, replicated across (ph) a lot of different notes, so you have to block every single one of them.

In addition, we are -- we've got a sort of file sharing system underdevelopment called IFS, the Interplanetary File System is it's called

--

BURKE: OK.

SANGER: -- and they have to block that as well.

[08:40:02] BURKE: So the advantage is so even if the government blocks one page somewhere that the information would be spread amongst computers

in many places so that information could still be accessible.

SANGER: Exactly. Well, a blockchain is like a protocol. So, just like HTTP itself, you would have to block the whole internet in order to block a

robust blockchain.

BURKE: Wikipedia is already so popular. You helped found something that has been incredibly successful. And some people question, is there really

need to be a competitor to Wikipedia given that so many people are involved. So, is that really necessary?

SANGER: I don't think there are enough people involved. There are something like 12,000 regular contributors to Wikipedia and yet it has got

hundreds of millions of readers. It should have over a million contributors. That's just one problem.

Another problem is if it's at top five website, doesn't that mean that there should be openness to multiple competing articles? And why doesn't

Wikipedia rates the articles and allow contributions in that form (ph)?

BURKE: Clearly you believe in blockchain technology. You're bringing it to -- a group that already existed and you're trying to change the

underpinnings of it. When you look at the landscape, what environments, what other companies or industries you think are most right (ph) for

blockchain to disrupt?

SANGER: Well, OK, I haven't really studied it that much but I will say this. I've seen some really education blockchain companies. And that is

certainly one industry that is right (ph) for disruption.

BURKE: Kristie, to Mr. Sanger's point, they've actually been looking at a company that is spreading its wings here in Dubai called Entertain (ph) and

this company is trying to use blockchain so that you can get your university transcripts. Anybody who has done that knows what a headache it

can be, and at work your employer accept the format that they sent in.

So they are trying to create standard for all universities, all workplaces using blockchain to accept something like a transcript so that all able to

speak to each other with a lot more ease. That was one of the best tangible example that I've seen out here, how you can take a process that has a lot

of bureaucratic headache and put it into one standard format for the world.

LU STOUT: And that is that for you, Samuel, just to be able to hear your report on this tangible examples of blockchain because I'm still trying to

get my head around the concept but when you talk about this rival to Wikipedia, you talk about something that is blockchain transcript system,

then we become one step closer to understanding what it is all about.

Samuel Burke live from Dubai, thank you so much. We'll talk again soon.

And that is it for "News Stream". I'm Kristie Lu Stout. Don't go anywhere. We got "World Sport" with Amanda Davies, next.

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[08:45:00] (WORLD SPORT)

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