CNN 2011-02-26

It is Wednesday, February 23rd, and we have a lot of international stories to tell you about today on CNN Student News. My name is Carl Azuz. We're starting off in New Zealand.The earthquake that jolted 1 the South Pacific country yesterday left one of its biggest cities in ruins. Christchurch, located on New Zealand's east coast, was badly shaken during lunch hour. It was a 6.3-magnitude quake, followed by strong aftershocks, and it was heartbreaking, according to New Zealand's prime minister. Dozens are dead. Parts of the city, as we said, are in ruins. Rescuers are streaming in from all over the country and all over the region, rescue being the nation's top priority at this point. 80 percent of Christchurch is without power and phone lines are down, making communication challenging for many survivors 2. This quake was actually an aftershock itself, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. New Zealand's been rattled 3 by a series of earthquakes since last September. This one was the worst, causing what could be New Zealand's darkest day, according to its leader.

What started off as an around-the-world boating trip ended in tragedy on Tuesday. Four Americans were shot and killed by pirates who hijacked 5 their ship in the Indian Ocean last week. The U.S. military says 19 pirates were involved in the hijacking 6. Four of them were killed. The other 15, captured. In these photos, you can see the ship, a 58-foot yacht called the Quest, along with its owners, Jean and Scott Adams. The couple, with two friends, changed course during their boating rally. They ended up in a part of the Indian Ocean where a lot of pirate attacks happen. Zain Verjee talked with a security expert to get an idea of how these pirates work. Here's part of that conversation.

Just walk someone through how pirates hijack 4 ships and, geographically 7, what do they do and then where do they end up?

OK, well, pirates are predominantly based in the area called Puntland, which is this area here. It's in the the northeast area of Somalia. And realistically, what they'll do is they'll base themselves out of the pirate towns using mother ships, but disperse 8 themselves. But they'll move further out into the Indian Ocean using these mother ships until they can find suitable targets. And some groups will obviously go further north, as we can see. And some will go further down south and stick to the coast of Tanzania or deep into the Indian Ocean. What they'll do is they'll move further out, they'll identify the targets and use these small attack skiffs to try and get on board. Once they've got on board and they've seized control of the vessel 9 and the crew, they'll take the ships back to the anchorages off the coast of Somalia, and they'll sit there and negotiate with the shipping 10 companies to pay a multi-million dollar ransom 11.