[Kristie Lu Stout:] Welcome to NEWS STREAM, where news and technology meet. I'm Kristie Lu Stout, in Hong Kong. And we begin in the Libyan city of Sirte. Firefights continue amid the ruin of Moammar Gadhafi's regime. And the showdown between Occupy Wall Street protesters and police has been averted just as the movement prepares to go global. And recognize this guy waiting to get hold of a new iPhone 4S? Yes, even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is eager to try it out. Now, first on NEWS STREAM, two cities at the heart of the fight for a new Libya. The battle continues to rage for control of Sirte, Moammar Gadhafi's birthplace. And to the east, Benghazi is firmly in the hands of the interim government, and NATO is handing over control of flights in the skies above Benghazi to Libya's newly formed Civil Aviation Authority. And that's even more remarkable when you see these images from March of Benghazi's shattered airport, and they show the devastation of the civil war and the massive recovery the country still faces. Now, advance, retreat, advance. That has been the pattern of Libya's revolutionary fighters as they try to capture Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte. You're looking at images of the intense fighting there. Dan Rivers is in Sirte, where there are still remnants of the Gadhafi regime and retribution by those who suffered under it.
[Dan Rivers, Cnn Sr. International Correspondent:] Again, they march into battle. This is a ragtag army, but one that's poised for victory. Some seem strangely nonchalant as they stroll to the fight, but it's not long before Gadhafi's troops respond again. Progress is here is slow, and at times the NTC troops are forced to retreat. As another supposed Gadhafi soldier is roughly frog-marched away, there is fresh criticism of the way the NTC is dealing with its prisoners. Human rights group Amnesty International claims to have uncovered evidence of arbitrary arrests and torture, and certainly these fighters don't seem keen to allow us to film this man. Much of the city is totally deserted, street after empty street devoid of residents. In one, we found a complex of houses this NTC fighter says belonged to the regime's spokesman, Mr. Ibrahim. They take shelter as more bullets fly past, and then it's on with the job of looting and destroying this house. On the outskirts of Sirte, another destroyed house. This one belonged to Moammar Gadhafi himself. It's been remodeled courtesy of NATO, but you can still see how opulent it once was. [on camera]: It has even its own hairdressing salon complete with barber's chairs and even a massage table over there. And elsewhere, there are dozens of ornate bedrooms with four-poster beds and lavish decorations all around. The people that are wandering around here are just stunned, saying, "We though Colonel Gadhafi lived in a tent." Does it make you angry when you see this?
[Unidentified Male:] Yes. I'm angry, yes. Why not? I'm so angry about it.
[Rivers:] In the basement, a huge conference area. Was this where the colonel planned his last stand in Sirte, or perhaps made arrangements for his escape? If he's still here, he'll be in the middle of a ferocious bombardment. His hometown is taking a pounding as Libya's revolution nears its victory.
[Stout:] Now, prayers and protests, meanwhile, are happening in Syria on this Friday. These are new pictures out of the northern Syrian city of Banish, and CNN cannot confirm their authenticity, but they apparently show, as you can see, huge crowds demonstrating following Friday prayers there. And they could be risking their lives. The United Nations is raising its death toll in Syria's opposition crackdown to more than 3,000, including 187 children. Now, the wife of a Syrian military officer who fled with his family to Turkey is accusing Ankara of turning him over to Syrian authorities. In an exclusive interview with Ivan Watson, Gofran Hejazi says she hasn't seen or heard from her husband Hussein in over two weeks.
[Ivan Watson, Cnn International Correspondent:] Gofran Hejasi doesn't know what to tell her children about their father.
[Gofran Hejazi, Husband Missing:] My eldest son sometimes opens up the computer, puts up his father's photo, and starts crying. And not a day goes by without my youngest son asking me, "When is daddy coming home?"
[Watson:] Hejazi's husband is Lieutenant Colonel Hussein al-Harmoush, one of the first Syrian army officers to publicly reject his government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. He urged other Syrian troops to desert and join what he called the Free Syrian Army. Similar videos from other defectors started popping up, suggesting Harmoush's call for rebellion was attracting recruits. Harmoush claimed to lead these rebels from this makeshift government-run refugee camp in neighboring Turkey. He lived here with his wife and four children until the morning of August 29th. Hejasi tells me her husband left the camp that morning to go shopping and to meet with a mysterious man who camp refugees believed was a Turkish intelligence officer. Hejasi says Harmoush disappeared that day and his cell phone then went dead.
[Hejasi:] From that moment, I was certain my husband was handed back to the Syrians.
[Watson:] Two-and-a-half weeks later, Harmoush suddenly resurfaced on Syria's strictly-controlled state television network. In this televised confession, Harmoush renounced the Syrian opposition and confessed to knowing about a plot to smuggle weapons into Syria. He hasn't been seen or heard from since. [on camera]: The Turkish government hasn't been able to explain how Hussein Harmoush disappeared from the gates of this camp here and reappeared days later in the hands of the Syrian government. Turkish government officials also say they do not know who the alleged Turkish security agent was who camp residents knew as Abu Mohammed. [voice-over]: In her first interview since her husband's disappearance, Hejasi accused Turkish authorities of handing Harmoush over to the Syrians.
[Hejasi:] I believe they arrested him as part of an agreement between both countries.
[Watson:] The Turkish government denies these accusations. Ankara says all Syrian refugees are welcome on Turkish territory and points to the more than 7,500 Syrians that have taken shelter in camps here. But that's little consolation to Hejasi. With the apparent capture of her husband, she doesn't know whether to call herself Harmoush's wife or his widow. [on camera]: If there was one message that you could send to your husband, Hussein Harmoush, what would it be?
[Hejasi:] If he's still alive, I urge him to be patient. But I don't think anyone can survive the torture and dungeons of the Syrian Secret Service. If he's dead, that means he's in paradise.
[Watson:] Ivan Watson, CNN, on the SyrianTurkish border.
[Stout:] And her husband has not been seen since September the 19th. Now let's go back to our top story, the battle for Sirte, the hometown of Moammar Gadhafi. And we can now go live to Dan Rivers, who joins us from inside Sirte. And we have seen explosions and thick smoke there today. And Dan, just how fierce is the fighting now?
[Rivers:] Oh, it's been particularly fierce in the last hour or so, Kristie. The anti-Gadhafi NTC forces took large amounts of casualties in the last hour. We saw dozens of trucks streaming back from the front line carrying bloodied soldiers, some of whom looked like they had been very seriously injured, some of whom look like they may have been killed. And they're being kind of worked on at a temporary makeshift hospital behind a building in one part of the tow. So it's clear from that that the Gadhafi forces are hitting back and, at times, hitting back very hard when the NTC forces try and advance into district two.
[Stout:] Pro-Gadhafi forces are hitting back hard. Just how well-equipped are they, and how much ammunition do they have left?
[Rivers:] Well, we're being told that they're primarily using sniper rifles, assault rifles, and the old rocket-propelled grenades. They don't appear to have any heavy artillery or tanks or anything like that, but in this kind of urban warfare situation, those weapons, the light arms and the sniper rifles, are very effective at pushing back the forces. The NTC has been pounding district two with artillery and tanks and rockets, but so far, they don't seem to have made a great deal of progress in the last 24 hours.
[Stout:] You reported casualties among the NTC fighters. What about civilians? A number of civilians have decided to stay in Sirte. Are they getting caught up in the crossfire?
[Rivers:] Well, to be honest, it's been very difficult for us to find any civilians in the city. We had a good drive around several districts now, and we haven't seen any civilians. Just street after street completely empty. All the houses are empty and look as if they've been abandoned. When we first arrived here on Monday, we did see a column of civilians walking out of the city. But since then, we haven't seen any or any at all. Whether there are some still trapped between the NTC forces and the Gadhafi forces is difficult to say, but I would say that the rest of the city seems to be largely deserted now, save for the soldiers who are carrying out this what they hope will be a final assault.
[Stout:] Thank you very much indeed for giving us the state of play there inside Sirte. Dan Rivers, joining us live. You are watching NEWS STREAM. And still ahead, bracing for floods. Thai authorities say that some of the water that has inundated the country north of the capital will reach Bangkok, but they say the inner city should be spared. And the sound of impending doom. A new cockpit transcript of the final minutes of Air France 447 stirs controversy. And occupying Wall Street. We will have the latest on the protests.