they contacted their family in east sussex who in turn contacted the coast guard. then it became an international affair. >> he is a photographer, she is a retired air hostess. they have to been touring latin america for the last five years in their beloved camper van which bruce sold his home to buy. traveling on this the drizzly difficult stretch of road in a remote part of the amazon, a bridge collapsed beneath them and they got stranded in a ravine. their vehicle came off of the road 200 miles from the nearest city. because they were carrying a satellite phone, they were able to call relatives 5,000 miles away and give them their precise coordinates. those relatives contacted the dover coastguard? then alerted the coast guard in cornwall. then the international liaison contacted the brazilian coast guard. they are used to rescue ships from water, not of vehicles with wheels that come off of the road. >> it is unusual for us to be dealing with anything in land. especially, a car accident. >> late this afternoon, they were located and rescued by helicopter. they

. >> reporter: he is from east sussex. words are easy but many here are uneasy. qaddafis's men massacred townspeople in may. the hard-core might repeat it. >> sreenivasan: also today, chinese officials confirmed that representatives of the qaddafi government visited china in july, trying to buy weapons. they denied charges by libyan rebels that chinese state firms offered to sell weapons to gadhafi's forces. that would have been a violation of u.n. sanctions. soldiers in syria carried out raids in several cities today, looking for a provincial attorney general. adnan bakkour appeared in a youtube video last week. he said he had defected and he denounced the regime's crackdown on dissent. protest leaders claimed bakkour is now safely out of syria. meanwhile, the head of the international committee of the red cross visited a damascus prison today. it was the first such visit since the uprising began five months ago. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: and to a look at the state of labor unions in the country. ray suarez has th