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American Morning

'Morning Buzz'

Aired January 23, 2002 - 07:20   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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Time now to find out what else is going on in the news, The Morning Buzz. It's time for us to buzz here on AMERICAN MORNING.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Buzz, buzz, buzz.

CAFFERTY: A story in "USA Today" that boggles the mind. Libya is apparently very close to a deal with the United States government to get off the list of countries that sponsors terrorism. The quid pro quo is $6 billion in reparations for PanAm Flight 103 that was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Qadhafi fesses up that they knew about it, they were behind it, etc.

Isn't it ironic -- and some of the victims and family members of the victims of that crash -- that the first country conceivably to come off the list of nations that sponsor terrorism is one that blew up an American airplane? But it may happen and American oil companies, among other things, will get back into Libya if it does happen.

ZAHN: And in this same piece there are quotes from family members who've lost daughters and sons on this flight and one woman who lost her daughter, Theodora, said, "It was a disgrace that the first country that would get off a terrorist list is the country" -- as you just said -- "that blew up an American plane."

CAFFERTY: What are they thinking about?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's also interesting because it comes at a time when just today, actually, an appeal was filed by the one Libyan who was convicted in the bombing of PanAm 103. He was convicted. He's actually now appealing. It's an open question whether or not that appeal will be successful.

But it's, you know, definitely a lot of families are upset, upset by the whole notion that suddenly we're going to be in bed again with Libya.

ZAHN: And they think we're selling out simply because of oil.

COOPER: Yes.

ZAHN: And I think that their arguments are going to become more pointed in the days to come as this... (CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: ... nears.

COOPER: They're also calling for really a full accounting of what happened, what exactly happened to PanAm 103. Because that's the frustrating thing for a lot of these families is that only one Libyan man has been convicted. Obviously, more people were involved in this. How high up did it go? Did Qadhafi himself approve this? And no one yet knows, and that's what a lot of these families want.

ZAHN: Well, you would hope that would be part of the condition, in addition to the $6 billion in compensation that he has to pay up.

COOPER: Right.

CAFFERTY: Well...

ZAHN: Where's he going to come up with that money, anyway?

CAFFERTY: Apparently they...

ZAHN: The Libyan economy hasn't been humming along at a very good rate over the last year.

CAFFERTY: We're going to probably find out he's making money selling arms to al Qaeda.

COOPER: Well, actually, it was interesting, in the article because I mean part of his motivation for doing this is that an al Qaeda supported group, or allegedly an al Qaeda supported group attempted to assassinate him several years ago. So the argu...

ZAHN: So he's mad.

COOPER: The argument is that he's trying to eliminate some of his competition.

An interesting article on the Web. The "Dallas Morning News" has a front page obituary of Stanley Marcus, who is the retailing pioneer best known, you know, he started Neiman Marcus. He -- I think the business started in like 1906. He started working there. It was his dad's store. Started in 1926. And he was really a pioneer. I mean he really created buzz about this store by sort of offering these bizarrely expensive products like, you know, his and her Beachcraft aircraft.

CAFFERTY: Right.

COOPER: His and her Beachcraft planes and...

ZAHN: And his Christmas catalogs.

CAFFERTY: Oh, legendary.

COOPER: Yes. ZAHN: That made everybody else's look silly.

CAFFERTY: Sure. Sure.

COOPER: So it is the ending there.

CAFFERTY: And Mike Tyson, once again, the walking felon, I don't know what this was about. They had this news conference supposedly to announce the Lenox-Lewis-Tyson fight. Tyson took a swing. Lewis responded. There were charges Tyson bit Lewis on the leg. And the thinking is Tyson maybe doesn't want this fight, because Lewis, the experts would suggest, would probably kick his butt just like Evander Holyfield was doing.

ZAHN: But do you guys think he should be banned from the sport?

CAFFERTY: Of course.

COOPER: But look, is this guy crazy...

ZAHN: Will he be?

COOPER: Is he crazy...

ZAHN: Absolutely not.

COOPER: Right? Yes, but...

CAFFERTY: I don't know. Too much money here.

COOPER: Is he crazy or is he crazy like a fox? I mean we're all talking about this. This is a fight which probably, you know, no one was paying attention to before and now it's, you know, it's on all the TV shows.

CAFFERTY: But he's...

ZAHN: It may not have to get bought.

CAFFERTY: The problem is he's not licensed for the fight yet and he has to go before the Nevada State Athletic Commission now, after that display yesterday, and say gee, I deserve a license. I mean the guy deserves...

COOPER: He's been fighting overseas a lot. You know, he had a fight in Scotland. So maybe he'll go to there or something.

CAFFERTY: But the pay per view in Scotland is so, very small.

ZAHN: It's kind of diminished the value if there is an upcoming fight because we just got that for free.

COOPER: He's big in Aberdeen. They love him in Aberdeen.

Well, if you have something you'd like to contribute to the Morning Buzz, we'd, of course, love to hear from you. You can e-mail us here at am@cnn.com and we will, of course, be checking our e-mail throughout the morning.

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