[Suzanne Malveaux, Cnn Anchor:] Welcome to NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. We're taking you around the world in 60 minutes. Here's what's happening right now. Things getting pretty desperate on board that cruise ship on the Gulf of Mexico. Forty-two hundred people on board. Passengers say the toilets now are overflowing. There is no air conditioning. Not much food or water. Tugboats, they are towing the ship to Mobile, Alabama, instead of the Port of Mexico. But it's not going to get there until Thursday. Coming up in just a couple of minutes, we're going to talk to a man whose wife is stuck on that ship. North Korea now thumbing its nose at the U.S. and the international community by carrying out a new, more powerful nuclear test. It is the first one under Kim Jong-un. President Obama calls it a threat to U.S. security and world peace. The first indication of the underground test came when seismologists detected a tremor in an area that is not known for earthquakes. In his State of the Union speech tonight, President Obama is going to announce that 34,000 U.S. troops will be home from Afghanistan by this time next year. Our Jake Tapper, he was the first to break the news after talking to sources who know about the president's speech. The move's going to cut the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by more than half. Troop reductions are going to continue through the end of next year. So, more than 4,000 people, if you can imagine this, stuck on this cruise ship. A disabled cruise ship. They are hot. They are hungry. You can believe me, they are holding their noses because toilets now are overflowing. These folks feeling pretty desperate right now. The ship is finally on the move. You have tugboats that are towing it to Mobile, Alabama. It was originally headed to port a port in Progresso, Mexico, but strong currents pushed it about 90 miles north. Want to bring in Brent Nutt. His wife is on the ship. He's been talking to her. We've been talking to Brent. And, Brent, you and I talked yesterday about how Bethany is doing. She the last go-round yesterday about this time you said she was crying. She was very discouraged. How is she doing today? When's the last time you actually had a chance to talk to her?
[Brent Nutt, Wife Stuck On Carnival Cruise Ship:] Well, today I have not actually had a chance to talk to her yet. They can only talk whenever another Carnival ship comes up there to them. But yesterday, I mean, she was very, very distraught and all and everything. And, I mean, I just I don't know. I haven't heard back from her. I do know that we got the news last night that they were going to be bringing them into Mobile, Alabama. So that had to make her feel a whole lot better because she didn't really want to be stuck in Mexico any longer than what she necessarily had to.
[Malveaux:] And, Brent, describe for us the conditions, because I know you had a chance to talk to Bethany yesterday a couple of times. Perhaps one late in the day. How did she describe what was happening there? Because I understand the just the odor alone is really getting to her and many others who are on board.
[Nutt:] Well, the odor is it's so bad that, I mean, it's making them sick. I mean, they're vomiting and stuff on to the boat just I mean just from the odor. She said that they can't hardly sleep at night because of the smell that's in the rooms and all and everything. She said that they've been hanging out onto their balcony just trying to escape all of the odor and I mean, and stuff. There's feces all over the floor and all and everything and water all over the floor. She said it's just horrific.
[Malveaux:] And, Brent, what does she say they're telling her in terms of what time they're going to this nightmare. When is this all it's going to end. What time they're actually going to be able to get in to safety to land sometime on Thursday?
[Nutt:] Just some time on Thursday. But nobody really, really knows anything. And, I mean, Carnival, I mean, you know, they've lied so much through this whole process that I mean you really, really cannot believe what they tell you until that ship actually lands.
[Malveaux:] What have they told her, Brent? What have they told her?
[Nutt:] Well, I mean, they haven't really, really told them anything at all. They keep telling us, well, the tugboats will be here at this time. They'll be here at this other time. And they never, ever arrive whenever that they're supposed to. So, I mean, you know, all of their all of their time frames have not added up at all.
[Malveaux:] Yes. We're going to we're going to make sure we get that side of the story as well. But, Brent, tell us, is she eating anything? Is she drinking anything? Is there any food or water on board?
[Nutt:] I know that yesterday all they had was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of water. And I was told
[Malveaux:] Is that coming from the ship itself, from the cafeteria, or is that stuff just snacks that she happened to bring on board?
[Nutt:] No, that's stuff that the other ships are giving to them to give to other people. But, more or less, it's a first come, first served kind of deal. And, I mean, you know, the first person gets a lot of food. Well, the last person, he might not get quite so much. So people are hoarding food and fighting over it because, I mean, there's kind of a shortage.
[Malveaux:] When you say people are fighting over the food, did Britney, did she give you any sense of like if people are getting along or are they really taking stuff from each other? Is it getting violent?
[Nutt:] She didn't necessarily say if it was getting violent. She said that, you know, that people I mean, you know, they were arguing over food because, I mean, certain people, I mean, you know, they were hoarding as much food as possible. And, I mean, you know, they were I mean it's not being evenly distributed in between all of the other people. So, I mean, and the people at the back of the line, you know, they see other people eating, you know, two or three sandwiches and, well, they only get just the one. So I guess it kind of makes them kind of angry.
[Malveaux:] Is there any way for them to bathe at all?
[Nutt:] No. There's no bathing at all or anything, at least as of yesterday. There was running water. But from what I'm told, the majority of other water was running on the floor and the toilets were overflowing and coming out of the walls. So to my knowledge, no, there's been no bathing.
[Malveaux:] And did she tell you I know there was you said there was another ship that managed to get close, so she was able to get communication. Is she actually able I mean are they able to get off that ship and board another ship if they wanted to?
[Nutt:] To my knowledge, no, they're not allowing them to. There's been two other times that these ships have came up to them to bring them food. But, no, they're not able to leave their ship and get on to the other one.
[Malveaux:] Did she have any idea when she's going to be able to communicate with you again? Because I know the last go-round she ran out of cell phone power and essentially she had to you said she has to charge it or at least get close to another ship to charge the phone. Do you have any sense of if she's going to be able to charge her phone again and get back to you anytime soon?
[Nutt:] Well, I mean, she's only able to call whenever whenever another Carnival ship brings food out there to them. They're getting cell phone service off these other ships that are coming up there. And so then, I mean, whenever they bring them more food, I guess, is when I'll be getting a phone call. Yesterday it was around 12:30 noon whenever I got a call from her, but I have not heard back since.
[Malveaux:] All right. We wish her the very best. And, of course, Brent, we're going to keep up with you to find out what's going on, the very latest. As soon as you reach her and she's able to communicate with you, get back to us. Get us get on the line and we'll talk to you some more about the very latest of that. And, of course, it's a really tough situation that they're in. Thanks again, Brent, for filling us in. Appreciate it.
[Nutt:] Thank you, ma'am.
[Malveaux:] We're going to head to the Korean peninsula. That is where North Korea is now, of course, raising the stakes in its nuclear showdown. This is with the world. Because we are talking about North Korea announcing it set off a new, underground nuclear test. That happened today. The state-run news agency says it was more powerful than the two previous tests that were carried out back in 2006 and 2009. So world leaders, of course, quickly condemning this. Anna Coren, she is live from Seoul, South Korea. Specifically tell us how this test is different than what we have seen before out of North Korea. All right. We
[Coren:] It managed to conduct that
[Malveaux:] You know what? We're going to have we have a bad signal. We're going to have to get back to Anna Coren and the very latest. I want to talk about this because, obviously, who is behind this. It is the leader who is trying to build up his image as a tough guy, as the country's young leader. We're talking about Kim Jong-un. He appears, of course, to be following in his father's footsteps, talking tough against the United States, as well as the west you know, trying to flex his muscle a little bit by building up the country's military and keeping the folks there isolated. So I want to talk to Michael Holmes about this because, Michael, we've seen his father, of course, starved his own people, built up this huge military. Now you've got the son who seems as if he's got something to prove. How significant is it when you look at this kind of test, the underground test, that was done today?
[Michael Holmes, Anchor & Correspondent, Cnn International:] Yes, no, that's actually a very good point. That is partly why he's doing what he's doing is to separate himself from his dad, be his own man if you like. I mean you could call it hubris, you could call it tactical. He wants to be the tough guy in front of his people and in front of the world. The guy whose standing up to the U.S. and the U.N., the evil ones on the outside who want to do in North Korea. The other thing too is, there is a tactical side to it in a military sense. If he does want to build a nuclear weapon that's small enough to fit on a missile, they need to do this kind of testing. And what worries the west is whether it's being done with uranium or plutonium. If it's uranium, then he could have a missile program, a nuclear program that could go on and on and on because he has uranium. He doesn't have a lot of plutonium. He also wants to be seen to be tough to be getting concessions, too, from the west, be it food aid, be it standing in the international community in the neighborhood. But it's backfiring because all he's getting is more sanctions and he's annoying his only good mate in the neighborhood, which is China, who said don't do this. He did it. So, you know, if he annoys them enough, they can turn of the oil. Then he's in trouble.
[Malveaux:] And then tell us about how how is he changing his country? Because his father was pretty eccentric, you know. He wore these platform shoes and the bouffant and all that. He got a lot of attention, but, of course, his own people were starved under his regime.
[Holmes:] Yes.
[Malveaux:] The son now, he's, you know, hanging out. He's got an amusement park. He's the woman the mystery woman now we know who is his wife. Very different when it comes to their own society there. He's trying to, in some ways, be open, right? All right, Michael, thank you.
[Holmes:] Yes.
[Malveaux:] Good to see you. Here's more of what we're working on for NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL. You already know, of course, Sarah Silverman, she's the funny foul- mouthed comedian. But you might not know her sister, who is a rabbi, who is standing up for women's rights at one of the most holy places in the Middle East. Well, she was detained for that. We're going to have more on that. And later, it's "Les Mis" like you have never seen. We are talking Korean style. It is a video going hyper viral online right now.