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CNN Live At Daybreak

International News Desk

Aired October 02, 2002 - 05:33   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.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to stay international now and check out what's on the agenda at our international desk.
Our senior international editor David Clinch has just arrived on the set. He's just putting on his microphone. Take your time. We know you're busy over there.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: That's OK. I'm ready.

COSTELLO: He's ready.

CLINCH: Sort of.

COSTELLO: You should have seen him running over here.

CLINCH: Well, I do have a job to do.

COSTELLO: I know, and we appreciate it.

CLINCH: But anyway.

COSTELLO: What's on tap today?

CLINCH: Let's do it. Iraq. I want to talk about Iraq every day, basically, because it's very confusing, lots of things going on, and it just, it's useful, I think, to just see where we are today. Vienna talks are over. The U.S. is trying to push for a new resolution. Our job here on the international desk is to make sure that we're not just looking at that in a one-dimensional way and looking to New York.

We have our Moscow correspondent, as you just saw. We have a correspondent covering a continuing Labor Party conference in England, where it's being debated, as well. We have our correspondent in Paris. Paris is key here. You're looking at -- the Russians perhaps having some flexibility. The Chinese probably trying to stay out of it as much as possible. The British siding with the United States in pushing for a new resolution.

The French are the key. So Jim Bitterman is in Paris all day today looking at whether there is any flexibility from the French point of view on whether they'll support a new U.S. resolution, so.

COSTELLO: So we've got people everywhere covering all aspects of Iraq?

CLINCH: Exactly. I mean, you know, it's not all happening in New York and Washington. The key here is what the rest of the world will do or will not do to support not military action, as such, but a resolution. What form will it take? So, we'll see.

COSTELLO: Everybody's waiting to see that.

So you have a lot of other things on your plate, too?

CLINCH: Oh, millions of other things. We're all over the place. Hurricane Lili, I mean it will become, this is the, we're in the point where it becomes a domestic story. Obviously I'm handing it over to my colleagues here on the national desk. But we're still looking at the damage that was caused in Cuba yesterday. Probably not as bad as might have been feared. The winds were very high, but as we said yesterday, it ended up hitting a relatively unpopulated area of Cuba. And, more importantly, I mean Chad knows more about this than I do, but it was a very tight storm at that point and didn't really cause widespread damage.

But Lucia Newman is going to go down to the area of Cuba that was hit and we'll see what happens. Sometimes you don't really hear about the damage until days afterwards. So the winds were very...

COSTELLO: Yes, it's hard in countries like Cuba to get information out.

CLINCH: Yes, I mean less Cuba perhaps than some of the other Caribbean countries. But nevertheless, you know, you need to go and look and see exactly what the damage was. And so we're, we'll head down there today.

And then another story that we can't really cover, it's a frustrating thing for me, the story of Iran and what is happening in Iran, the tension that has existed for months and years now between the conservative and the, I suppose you would say, reformist arm of Iran has come to the fore again in a very interesting way, which we can report on, but unfortunately can't go, as we want to, to Tehran to report on it.

But a pollster, a man who does polls in Iran did a poll apparently a couple of weeks ago in which a huge proportion of the country said that they wanted better relations or, in fact, relations, direct relations with the United States. Not that big of a deal, you would think.

But apparently not only has this pollster himself been called before a conservative court in Tehran to answer for his, in their view, erroneous poll, but also some of the journalists who actually reported the poll were detained, not arrested, not put away, but nevertheless questioned.

So we are looking at that story all the time. But I think a particularly interesting day today to sort of look at exactly where Iran is, you know, axis of evil.

We're covering, on another axis of evil, the United States is actually visiting North Korea this week. They have a diplomat visiting North Korea. So, you know, that arm of the axis of evil, if you want to call it that, in Iran is a fascinating one for us and one that we can't cover very often, but when interesting things like that come up, it's worth looking at, you know?

COSTELLO: Yes. And hopefully we can find out what eventually happens to those people who come out with those polls.

CLINCH: Yes, we -- exactly. It's below the radar, but we need to keep an eye on it, so we will.

COSTELLO: All right, David Clinch, thank you very much.

CLINCH: All right.

COSTELLO: We'll let you get back to work.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired October 2, 2002 - 05:33   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We want to stay international now and check out what's on the agenda at our international desk.
Our senior international editor David Clinch has just arrived on the set. He's just putting on his microphone. Take your time. We know you're busy over there.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: That's OK. I'm ready.

COSTELLO: He's ready.

CLINCH: Sort of.

COSTELLO: You should have seen him running over here.

CLINCH: Well, I do have a job to do.

COSTELLO: I know, and we appreciate it.

CLINCH: But anyway.

COSTELLO: What's on tap today?

CLINCH: Let's do it. Iraq. I want to talk about Iraq every day, basically, because it's very confusing, lots of things going on, and it just, it's useful, I think, to just see where we are today. Vienna talks are over. The U.S. is trying to push for a new resolution. Our job here on the international desk is to make sure that we're not just looking at that in a one-dimensional way and looking to New York.

We have our Moscow correspondent, as you just saw. We have a correspondent covering a continuing Labor Party conference in England, where it's being debated, as well. We have our correspondent in Paris. Paris is key here. You're looking at -- the Russians perhaps having some flexibility. The Chinese probably trying to stay out of it as much as possible. The British siding with the United States in pushing for a new resolution.

The French are the key. So Jim Bitterman is in Paris all day today looking at whether there is any flexibility from the French point of view on whether they'll support a new U.S. resolution, so.

COSTELLO: So we've got people everywhere covering all aspects of Iraq?

CLINCH: Exactly. I mean, you know, it's not all happening in New York and Washington. The key here is what the rest of the world will do or will not do to support not military action, as such, but a resolution. What form will it take? So, we'll see.

COSTELLO: Everybody's waiting to see that.

So you have a lot of other things on your plate, too?

CLINCH: Oh, millions of other things. We're all over the place. Hurricane Lili, I mean it will become, this is the, we're in the point where it becomes a domestic story. Obviously I'm handing it over to my colleagues here on the national desk. But we're still looking at the damage that was caused in Cuba yesterday. Probably not as bad as might have been feared. The winds were very high, but as we said yesterday, it ended up hitting a relatively unpopulated area of Cuba. And, more importantly, I mean Chad knows more about this than I do, but it was a very tight storm at that point and didn't really cause widespread damage.

But Lucia Newman is going to go down to the area of Cuba that was hit and we'll see what happens. Sometimes you don't really hear about the damage until days afterwards. So the winds were very...

COSTELLO: Yes, it's hard in countries like Cuba to get information out.

CLINCH: Yes, I mean less Cuba perhaps than some of the other Caribbean countries. But nevertheless, you know, you need to go and look and see exactly what the damage was. And so we're, we'll head down there today.

And then another story that we can't really cover, it's a frustrating thing for me, the story of Iran and what is happening in Iran, the tension that has existed for months and years now between the conservative and the, I suppose you would say, reformist arm of Iran has come to the fore again in a very interesting way, which we can report on, but unfortunately can't go, as we want to, to Tehran to report on it.

But a pollster, a man who does polls in Iran did a poll apparently a couple of weeks ago in which a huge proportion of the country said that they wanted better relations or, in fact, relations, direct relations with the United States. Not that big of a deal, you would think.

But apparently not only has this pollster himself been called before a conservative court in Tehran to answer for his, in their view, erroneous poll, but also some of the journalists who actually reported the poll were detained, not arrested, not put away, but nevertheless questioned.

So we are looking at that story all the time. But I think a particularly interesting day today to sort of look at exactly where Iran is, you know, axis of evil.

We're covering, on another axis of evil, the United States is actually visiting North Korea this week. They have a diplomat visiting North Korea. So, you know, that arm of the axis of evil, if you want to call it that, in Iran is a fascinating one for us and one that we can't cover very often, but when interesting things like that come up, it's worth looking at, you know?

COSTELLO: Yes. And hopefully we can find out what eventually happens to those people who come out with those polls.

CLINCH: Yes, we -- exactly. It's below the radar, but we need to keep an eye on it, so we will.

COSTELLO: All right, David Clinch, thank you very much.

CLINCH: All right.

COSTELLO: We'll let you get back to work.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com