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CNN Newsroom

NEWSROOM for June 8, 2001

Aired June 08, 2001 - 04:30   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Seen in classrooms the world over, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

SHELLEY WALCOTT, CO-HOST: And NEWSROOM makes it to Friday -- welcome. I'm Shelley Walcott.

Here's a look at what's coming up.

In today's "Top Story," global warming gets a report card. Find out if temperatures are rising. Then, we'll take a look at the last typewriter in our "Editor's Desk." Up next in "Worldview," we go searching for the face of Africa. And finally, we "Chronicle" an ancient Asian art.

In "Today's News," the Bush administration taking heat after a newly released report on global warming. The White House had requested the study from the National Academy of Sciences. And now that the report is in, it confirms that the earth's temperatures are, in fact, on the rise.

The report comes as President Bush prepares to meet with world leaders next week, many of whom are upset with the president's policy on the environment.

Kelly Wallace reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush administration, facing mounting criticism for not supporting a global warming treaty, turned to a scientific group for some answers. The Nonpartisan National Academy of Sciences concluded:

"We know that greenhouse gasses are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere, causing surface temperatures to rise. We don't know precisely how much of this rise to date is from human activities."

The White House seized on that last point, remaining skeptical on the cause of the problem.

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There's no question that part of the cause is human activity. The question is how much of the cause is human activity? WALLACE: But environments say the report confirms that global warming is a big problem and is only getting worse and accused the Bush administration of being unrealistic in claiming the evidence still isn't there.

DAVID HAWKINS, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: They are still looking for the source of problem. That's like somebody saying, I'm out there looking for the real killers. No, the problem is clear. The problem is pollution from burning coal, from burning gasoline.

WALLACE: In March, President Bush outraged environmentalists and European allies when he confirmed he would not support the global warming treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol. The president expressed concerns about the impact the agreement could have in the U.S.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will not accept a plan that will harm our economy and hurt American workers.

WALLACE: But now, senior Bush advisers can see, perhaps they could have done a better job tipping off European allies about the administration's opposition to the treaty.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: In retrospect, perhaps the fact that we understood that we had already said this was not immediately observable to everybody and it might have been better to let people know, again.

WALLACE: The president has ordered a cabinet level group to deal with global warming. One proposal the White House is considering is a market driven system rewarding industries which meet emission targets, but environments say mandatory targets for industries to reduce pollution are the only answer.

(on camera): The president is not expected to unveil any specific proposals during next week's trip to Europe but the pressure is to provide at least some ideas to U.S. allies who are in major disagreement with Mr. Bush over the global warming issue.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: So what exactly is global warming? And why does it have environmentalists and world leaders so concerned?

Natalie Pawelski reports on how the earth could be affected by warming temperatures and how this, in turn, could affect the human race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The idea that human activity could be warming the planet isn't new. The first scientific paper on global warming was published 105 years ago. But a National Academy of Sciences panel took a big step toward confirming that global warming theory is potentially dangerous fact. JOHN WALLACE, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: We certainly do know that the earth is warming, and that that warming has been particularly dramatic during the past 20 years. We know that greenhouse gases cause the earth to be warmer than it would otherwise be.

PAWELSKI: An sharp increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases traps heat near the Earth's surface, warming the air and water, and potentially changing weather patterns, raising sea levels and altering forests and crop lands.

Other risks could include wider ranging tropical diseases, more frequent and intense storms and flooding of low-lying coastal areas, from Florida to Bangladesh. The NAS report stops short of endorsing the alarming numbers cited in a United Nations-sponsored report last year. The U.N.'s intergovernmental panel on climate change said human activity could warm the earth by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century. To put that into perspective, the last Ice Age was only nine degrees less than current temperatures.

To put that into perspective, the last ice age was only nine degrees less than current temperatures. Worth noting: Among the 11 scientists signing the report is MIT's Richard Lindzen, considered the most prominent scientific skeptic on global warming's potential harm.

The scientific debate on global warming is winding down, leaving the spotlight on the quest for political remedies for what many call the biggest environmental challenge of the 21st century.

Natalie Pawelski, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: In our "Editor's Desk" today, we examine something you might not have ever used: a typewriter. Way before computers and mouse pads, there was the typewriter. The early typewriters, circa 1867, had only capital letters. The electric typewriter was introduced in 1935, but it was a far cry from today's word processors. Imagine writing a term paper for school and having to type it over and over every time you made a mistake. These days, you can just edit your work on a computer, not so with those old typewriters.

Garrick Utley has a nostalgic look at the machine and the mark it made on society.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In downtown Manhattan, on East Fulton Street, something was about to disappear. Up there on the second floor: Do you remember the sounds of a typewriter?

Peter Tytell does.

PETER TYTELL: I grew up with them. These are my childhood playmates. UTLEY: And his sandbox was the crowded little repair shop his father started back in the 1930s. It became a Mecca for writers who couldn't give up their battered or broken typewriters, clients from Dorothy Parker to Andy Rooney.

And now, in the age of the computer, the Tytells are closing down their repair business, one of the last of its kind.

(on camera): To walk through Peter Tytell's shop is to take a stroll through the history of the typed word and to see how it has spread. There are typewriters and type here for 145 languages -- for French and Farsi, for Russian, Arabic, Hindi, as well as Greek, modern and ancient.

(voice-over): The first commercially successful typewriters were built in the 1870s by Remington.

TYTELL: It was called the blind writer because you had to pick up the carriage to see what you had typed.

UTLEY: Mark Twain claimed he was the first author to submit a typed manuscript, with "Tom Sawyer."

Typewriters brought out a competitive streak. There were typing races with champions reaching 60, 80, or more words a minute. There was even an attempt to turn the typewriter into a musical instrument.

But the biggest human advance of this Industrial Age tool was for women.

TYTELL: Women were called that: Originally, they were the type writers, and they worked on typewriting machines. This was very much an avenue for women to get into the formerly male stronghold of the office and commerce.

UTLEY (on camera): Typewriters may possess a nostalgic mystique for some, but no mystery, except for one thing: the keyboard. Why are the letters arranged Q, W, E, R, T, Y, and so on? Because that's the way they were laid out on the first typewriters back in the 1870s. And why were they arranged this way back then? That's the mystery. No one knows for sure.

(voice-over): Today, typing on a computer keyboard offers less noise and no ink stains, as well as spell check.

TYTELL: I feel that they are different. I feel the difference between using a typewriter and using a computer.

UTLEY (on camera): Why?

TYTELL: Different materials. The electrons feel different from steel.

UTLEY (voice-over): But the electrons, the digits, have won out over steel, just as steel won out over the quill.

Garrick Utley, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: In the "Desk Extra," we turn the spotlight on a group of enterprising teens. For them, it's not enough to sit back and watch a summer blockbuster at the movies, they actually went out and picked up the camera themselves to learn how to write, direct and edit a feature film.

And as Alexa Lee reports, their efforts are paying off.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXA LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The subject matter and simple honesty of youth produced films like these may be surprising, even shocking, to some adults. But to teens turned filmmakers, this is their world. The words and images an increasingly popular vehicle to share them.

MEREDITH CULLEN, TEEN FILMMAKER: They're serious issues and you know, oh, some of them are like a matter of life and death.

LEE: Seventh grader Meredith Cullen talks about a film she and her classmates at Atlanta Girls' School put together. The seven- minute movie shows how teenage girls are bombarded with unrealistic expectations about appearance. The students used a computer and an $800 digital camera.

(on camera): Their production is one of more than 30 youth films to be screened right here in this theater. It's a first-time event called Teen Screen, part of the Atlanta Film and Video Festival and the collection is diverse.

(voice-over): This film produced by Colorado teens called "Clay Pride" explores sexual orientation and gay bashing through stop-motion animation. Other films focus on everything from commercialism to teen sex and hip-hop's influence on American culture.

Film industry experts say thanks to the growth of digital technology, teen work is gaining respect and more visibility.

BRIAN NEWMAN, IMAGE FILM & VIDEO CENTER: Festivals across the nation are working with them more. Different groups are coming together to distribute their work.

LEE: These teens are excited. They say moviemaking is a great way to express their thoughts and exercise their freedom.

Alexa Lee, Headline News, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARESS MCFARLAND, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN: Hi, my name is Caress McFarland. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I would like to ask CNN how can the news networks make the news more interesting for younger viewers?

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I'm glad you asked. CNN is committed to engaging the younger generation in the news and in fact, offers a whole variety of programs and resources for that purpose alone.

(voice-over): First, there's CNN NEWSROOM, which I work on. It's a half-hour commercial free educational program that's used by teachers in thousands of classrooms around the world every day. What we do on CNN NEWSROOM is tell the news in a way that's pertinent to kids or students. Often, we tell our news stories from the perspective of teenagers and we give extensive background information so the premise is easy to grasp while adding context and perspective.

Now, CNN has actually put newsgathering in the hands of the younger generation through the CNN Student Bureau, our official student-reporting program for high schools and colleges. And CNN also has a Web site designed specifically for teens. You can click on CNNfyi.com for quick access to educational news and information.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: In "Worldview" today, the global nature of business and communication. You've heard the expression global village, well these days we're more connected with each other than ever before. We'll examine the advantages and disadvantages as we look at the Internet and manufacturing. But first, we head to Africa where the measure of beauty is sometimes controversial.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but in the world of modeling, the specifications are far more rigid. Women who want to be professional models are often required to be at least 5'9" tall. That's 1.75 meters. And when it comes to body image, most models these days are very thin. This has caused some problems for average sized women -- women who struggle with the way their bodies look compared to the projected ideal they see on magazine covers, television and in movie.

The fashion industry often delivers a very unrealistic picture. In fact, the average American woman's body is 5'4" tall and 140 pounds, an average size 12 or 14. While it may not be realistic, modeling is still considered one of the most glamorous professions in the world.

Recently, more than two dozen young women from 28 African countries gathered in South Africa's Sun City for the annual Face of Africa competition.

The contest was the result of a wide search, as Catherine Bond explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Producer Jan Malan, looking for a Ugandan contestant for South African television channel's modeling competition. JAN MALAN, PRODUCER: There's quite a bit of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Uganda already so it's not as though they've never been part of the process.

BOND: But finding someone tall and skinny isn't as easy as it seems.

MILAN: You're a bit short.

BOND: Too short -- as a minimum 1.75 meters or 5 foot 9, set by London and New York-based modeling agencies.

SHEILA SAKELALA, ASPIRING MODEL: I expect that it would -- I mean my height. Yes. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) short.

BOND: Or too wide -- that's more than 36 inches around the hips.

PATRICIA TILO, ASPIRING MODEL: Yes, that's a problem we have. Ugandans girls are wide; that's true.

BOND: But in generous hips, true beauty lies, at least in African culture. So why should contestants have to comply with an American modeling ideal of 34-inch hips to enter this African competition?

MALAN: We have for the last four years have a great deal of controversy because of that issue. And, but all we can say is that the sole purpose of "Face of Africa" is to place girls internationally.

BOND: Too short, too wide -- the verdict for even front-runners like Freda, who got in twice, meaning that this year there won't be a Ugandan finalist in the "Face of Africa" lineup -- not that those who tried mind.

BARBARA BUNDE, ASPIRING MODEL: I think that the judges are really fair (INAUDIBLE)

BOND: Or at least...

FREDA ATAKULE, ASPIRING MODEL: It's just a competition and then you go home.

BOND: ... not as much as the scouts minded.

MALAN: We don't want to leave Uganda not having found a representative. But at the same time we were also under pressure because we're only allowed 24 and where she's counting 28 countries. So there are some countries that have already lost out.

BOND: In the end, modeling is more about business than beauty.

IPETLA MOATSHE, HEAD SCOUT: It's nice to work with the younger girls because we can mold them into -- we could teach them, you know, the way that modeling works and...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's it. I like that. That's it. OK, let me see...

BOND: Scouts out to choose lankly giants like Michele (ph), picked to represent Kenya. Girls who hit the desirable 1.8 meters or 5 foot 11, makes them easy to place with modeling agencies.

Catherine Bond, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TOM HAYNES, CO-HOST: As our ability to communicate advances through things like telecommunications and the Internet, it seems like the world is becoming a much smaller place. Well, recently leaders from 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere gathered at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada, to talk about just that. The buzzword: globalization. They agreed to begin capitalizing on this global communications revolution in the form of a hemisphere wide free trade zone set to open up by 2005.

But with all the excitement over increased international trade comes growing opposition to the forces of globalization. Protesters say the West will gain at the expense of developing countries and the environment, among other things.

Bruce Morton gives us his perspective on the globalization debate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The protesters, memorably in Quebec last month, more quietly in Washington last weekend -- protest fatigue, perhaps, was a factor.

The protesters, anyway are protesting globalization. But globalization, the increasing interconnectedness of just about everything, is surely as inevitable as crab grass or e-mail. A few tiny corners of the world may be able to stay Shangri-Las, walled off from the rest of us, but not many.

So the protesters sometimes say that what they really want is for poor countries to be less exploited. They should have unions and minimum wages and so on. Some plants in some poor countries do. The New York Times reported recently on a factory in Salvador, which had a union, some benefits like day care for employees' kids. But wages were still low because if they went up too much, the jobs would go next door to Guatemala or Honduras.

Countries compete for manufacturing jobs. Unless you imagine some giant government handing them out somehow, that competition will continue. And governments do very badly at managing economies, as the late Soviet Union proved.

Here in the United States, the old manufacturing jobs are going -- couldn't compete with cheaper foreign labor or, maybe as often, with automation. In a modern automobile factory, the workers are the people in white coats walking around and making sure the robots are doing what they are suppose to do. The kind of manufacturing jobs that millions had in the 1950s just don't exist anymore.

How does the United States compete since it will never match the developing world's low wages? With high tech. Jobs for craftsmen, bricklayers, plumbers, auto mechanics will always be there, but the old manufacturing jobs have yielded to more technological ones, jobs which require computer skills. Even in something as traditional as the news business, reporters now carry computers. And the boys and girls on the bus talk modems as much as what the candidate just said.

The global economy is here. The global village is just about here, and that won't change. It makes demands on developed countries as well as emerging ones. Countries like the U.S. must educate their young people, must turn out men and women who can apply these high- tech trades.

The young protesters worry about third world countries, but the future speaks to the protesters, too. If you want to compete, get the best education you possibly can. The new century is hip deep in high- tech.

I'm Bruce Morton.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE MCMANUS, CO-HOST: While to many people the Internet and the World Wide Web are a fantastic technological breakthrough, not everybody feels that way. Take the recording industry, for example. Musicians and industry executives protested loudly when Napster made it possible to download copyrighted material basically for free. And they're not happy about many radio stations either. They've made their broadcast accessible through the Web.

As David Waters reports, record companies want them to pay to play.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

DAVID WATERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): WA1A Radio in Melbourne used to pride itself on having a lot of listeners. Not only did this 100,000-watt station reach much of Central Florida, but also the world with its Internet rebroadcasts.

MICHAEL W. LOWE, WA1A MUSIC DIRECTOR: We get e-mails on a daily basis from people in Saudi Arabia that are in the armed forces that are from this area. We get e-mails from Canada, from South Africa, from all over, people who have listened to this radio station and really appreciated the fact that they could hear our radio station on the World Wide Web.

WATERS: But WA1A's Internet rebroadcast has gone silent, along with almost every other radio station in the country. The Recording Industry Association of America told broadcasters that they now have to pay to rebroadcast a radio station on the Internet. As a result, the stations are pulling off the Web. LOWE: It is not free anymore, you know, you got to pay the piper. Just like -- just like you pay your cable bill, you've...

WATERS: Cumulus Broadcasting, Clear Channel Communications and other corporations did the same, posting messages on station Web sites apologizing to Internet listeners.

LOWE: This is going to be a Napster-like ruling. It's going to affect us the way Napster affects the common music collector.

WATERS (on camera): The recording industry says just as with Napster, if an artist's music is played, they must be paid, even if it's being rebroadcast on the Internet. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says any Webcast must be charged but no pricing plan was ever created. The U.S. Copyright Office asked the recording industry to come up with that pricing plan.

(voice-over): They returned with a pricing plan telling stations they'd be charged .4 cents per song per user. Five hundred Internet listeners tuning in for two hours a day would cost the station over $5,000. For two hours everyday for the whole year, the station would be charged more than $270,000.

LOWE: If you have 3 or 4 or 500 or 1,000 radio stations, that's a very big decision. That's a lot of money.

WATERS: The fee is retroactive to 1998, meaning stations would still have to pay for the past two-and-a-half years if they've been broadcasting on the Web. The recording industry says there is an alternative: broadcasters can pay a flat fee -- 15 percent of revenue earned from the Web site. Either that or use the other alternative, keep the station's airwaves off the Internet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 107.1 WA1A, the coast's No. 1 hit music station. You won't hear it on the Internet but you can hear it here and it's Aerosmith.

(MUSIC)

WATERS: David Waters, CNN, Brevard County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Teachers, make the most of CNN NEWSROOM with our free daily classroom guide to the program. There you'll find a rundown of each day's show so you choose just the program segment that fits your lesson plan. Plus, there are discussion questions and activities and the guide highlights key people, places and news terms. Each day find hot links to other online resources and previews of upcoming "Desk" segments.

It's all at this Web address where you can also sign up to have the guide automatically e-mailed directly to you each day. It's easy. It's free. It's your curriculum connection to the news. After all, the news never stops and neither does learning. WALCOTT: Music and art are two popular forms of human expression. You could say the two go hand-in-hand. In 'Chronicle" today, we focus on an ancient Japanese art form that's gaining attention around the world.

CNN's student bureau reporter Jessica Chang tells us more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(DRUMS BEATING)

JESSICA CHANG, CNN STUDENT BUREAU REPORTER (voice-over): There's much more to these drums than the booming sounds they make.

CHANG: This is taiko. It was originally used in the 1400s in Japan to intimidate enemies on the battlefield. And now, several hundred years later, it's considered an art form.

For the members of Hikari Taiko, playing these drums has become a passion.

CAROL KUSUMI, HIKARI TAIKO PERFORMER: It gets into your soul and you just -- you feel it and it becomes part of you. And there's -- you know there's times where you just, oh, you don't want to play and you get in and you start playing and it starts lifting up your spirits and making you feel good.

CHANG: Behind all the drumbeats, arm movements and choreography, there's a story.

MARY JANE MAYEDA, HIKARI TAIKO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Tomabiko (ph), it tells a story about a drought in the small village in Japan that they had and they were starving for like four years. And finally the gods heard their answer -- the prayers and answered their prayers so they paid homage to this -- to their gods before their majestic mountain and had a big celebration.

(DRUMBEATS)

CHANG (on camera): Hikari Taiko is open to people of all ethnic backgrounds. This diversity is reflected in the sound these drums make and its widespread appeal around the world.

BONNIE GORSIC, HIKARI TAIKO PERFORMER: In our group, we are multicultural. We have Hispanic folks, we have Caucasians like myself, we have Japanese folks and Chinese folks, and at first I kind of felt out of place. You know I'm not -- I'm not Asian, I'm not Japanese and maybe I don't really fit here, but as I stayed more and more, there are a lot of people who are very accepting.

CHANG (voice-over): Hikari means illumination in Japanese. And since the group was founded in 1978, the members of Hikari Taiko hope they can spread sunshine into people's lives.

Jessica Chang, CNN Student Bureau.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALCOTT: And that wraps up today's show. We'll see you next week. Have a great weekend.

Bye-bye.

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